Children , like other people, need to know daily that the Christ is here and now. In Christian Science, one learns that Truth, taking the place of any form of error, is and always has been the Savior. A child will love the meaning of the true Christmas if, day by day, he has found that the turning to the truth has brought about healing and constant joy. By the very knowing of the truth, one is proving that Truth unfolds in just the right way and at just the right time. Thus the real birth of the Christ goes on for each one to-day. As Mrs. Eddy says in "Christ and Christmas" (p. 53):—

Through kindly training, a child should be shown the way in which the truth is ever at hand to replace with the right action of the divine Mind what seems to be wrong. Even a child knows the presence of Mind. Mind, or God, is just the name for the cause for one's being really alive. One is truly alive and happy only in knowing good. Gladness in living, in knowing God as Mind, or divine Love, is finding what the true gift of God is each day. This gladness does not depend on the having of any mere things. It comes about, instead, through that really right thinking which is sure knowing of only what the one Mind knows. The one Mind is conscious of strength, health, freedom of action, joy, and goodness of every sort; and all this that the divine Mind knows is the perfect gift of God.

When we reason thus that God is divine Mind, we feel at once that this Mind is present. It never could be absent for an instant. Its right action always has been here to bless, heal, and make happy, in spite of what any one may have believed. If a child, or any one else, sees that what true Mind does is right, hurts no one, and means joy for all, then eager love for the right allows neither room nor time for error of any sort. Both the child and the adult, of course, need to know what is right to do, much more than what not to do. That parent who merely tells a child not to do this and not to do that is hardly turning the child to the right way. To show how the one Mind, divine Love, keeps the child of God busy with kindly and happy action may require the parent to be ever alert; but the effort to paint out to a child how to be rightly active is surely more worth while than it would be merely to forbid the many things that seem wrong. The really good work of both parent and child lies in the knowing of the presence of Mind.

True Christmas is proved to be every day when this good work goes on every day. Only to deny error is not to know the truth. Through patience in the home and in the school, each one can prove that the divine Mind does express itself as right action here and now, no matter what may seem. Quiet sureness that the one Mind, causing only true idea, is all there is to divine Love showing itself loving is a constant joy; and joy is, of course, the essence of Christmas. In any doing, even in what is called play, the joy lies simply in the doing of what Mind directs in order and yet with vigor. The vigor and gladness of this action do not depend on the many things that are often supposed to be Pleasant. The child, and likewise the one who has become as a little child in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, can be happy with the simplest of living and doing. In fact, the joy in simply knowing the truth in all its boundless goodness is the secret of entrance into the kingdom here and now.

Christmas, then, is daily good for all who know the truth, for all who are children in every sense of the word. To the simple seeker for Truth, the Christ is always present as the right idea of the divine Mind, in place of any human sense of things. The glad proving of this right idea as present does not depend on and cannot be hindered by any false belief. What has been mere belief or fiction in regard to Christmas has to give way to the truth, which in its fullness is surely good enough to suffice for all. When that which only excites has been replaced by the active joy of true Mind, nothing is lost but real good is gained. This good is not more at one time than at another nor more for one than for another, but is ever without limit and without lapse because it comes from and is maintained by divine Love itself. It is only to unreal mortal sense that the Christ, or Truth, has ever even seemed to come or to go or to vary. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 61 of "Unity of Good," "To material sense, Jesus first appeared as a helpless human babe; but to immortal and spiritual vision he was one with the Father, even the eternal idea of God, that was—and is—neither young nor old, neither dead nor risen. The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought,—the twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance of divine Life. Human perception, advancing toward the apprehenson of its nothingness, halts, retreats, and again goes forward; but the divine Principle and Spirit and spiritual man are unchangeable,—neither advancing, retreating, nor halting."

The parent, or any one else, who knows this fact of the constant presence of the Christ is prepared to enjoy the ceaseless Christmas and to express for others always the utmost of kindly help and good cheer. On page 261 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy says, in a little article called "Christmas for the Children": "Methinks the loving parents and guardians of youth ofttimes query: How shall we cheer the children's Christmas and profit them withal? The wisdom of their elders, who seek wisdom of God, seems to have amply provided for this, according to the custom of the age and to the full supply of juvenile joy. Let it continue thus with one exception: the children should not be taught to believe that Santa Claus has aught to do with this pastime. A deceit or falsehood is never wise. Too much cannot be done towards duarding and duiding well the germinating and inclining thought of childhood." The whole of the little article is helpful, like all of Mrs. Eddy's other writings, for whatever she has said has been and is for the turning of all to the truth, to the Christ whose real celebration must be unceasing practice of Christian Science in accord with divine Principle.

Gustavus S. Paine.

"Nearer, my God, to Thee"—man's constant prayer,
"Nearer, my God, to Thee," having no care.
The way is ever bright, Love is the guide;
Truth is omnipotent, good does abide.

Sarah Aimeé Bruce.