Article December 14, 1957 Issue

CHRISTMAS GIVING

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

ELEANOR OWERS SMITH

AT Christmas when there is more giving than at any other season, it is necessary to make certain that our giving is the evidence of the Christ in consciousness. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy gives this enlightening explanation of Christ (p. 332): "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness." And on the next page she says, "Christ expresses God's spiritual, eternal nature."

To observe Christmas, then, in its true significance is to be Christlike. Such observance does not mean that we shall lose our fun and joy. Indeed, we shall have more joy as we hear "the true idea voicing good" speaking to us.

Mrs. Eddy's last Christmas message was to her household. She wrote (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 263): "Beloved:—A word to the wise is sufficient. Mother wishes you all a happy Christmas, a feast of Soul and a famine of sense." In its original meaning a feast is a festival, a time of being very joyful. A "feast of Soul," therefore, is a time of being full of the joys of Soul.