Editorial December 21, 1940 Issue

"Christmas for the Children"

George Shaw Cook

ON page 261 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," under the above caption, Mary Baker Eddy says: "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." But she also says in the same article: "Too much cannot be done towards guarding and guiding well the germinating and inclining thought of childhood. To mould aright the first impressions of innocence, aids in perpetuating purity and in unfolding the immortal model, man in His image and likeness."

It is evident from the foregoing that our Leader, whose love for little children was very great, did not wish to deprive them of any wholesome pleasure connected with the Christmas festivities. But it is also evident that she saw the wisdom of raising their thought above the merely human to serious contemplation of the divine Christ or spiritual idea of God.

Christian Scientists find it advisable early to educate children to see that the highest purpose of the Christmas celebration is not to commemorate the earthly advent of our Master, but rather to emphasize the appearing in human consciousness of the Christ, Truth, which he taught and demonstrated. They desire to help children to understand that Christ, which is coexistent with God, is ever present and always available to them in meeting their human needs, whether these needs be small or great; that the truth is as applicable on the playground as it is in the Sunday school or in the home.

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