At the Christmas season the thought of many persons is turned to the giving of gifts to friends, relatives, and business acquaintances. Sometimes, however, a feeling of pressure and hurry takes possession of thought, and the beautiful meaning of the Christmas message is almost lost.

Each year before starting out to do her Christmas shopping, one student of Christian Science finds it helpful to spend some time in the contemplation of the meaning of spiritual gifts. The unfoldment which came to her the first year she did this, and which has increased in subsequent years, came partly from reading the references to Christmas in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Helpful articles were also found in the current issues of the Christian Science periodicals.

She pondered as well what the Apostle Paul wrote about spiritual gifts in one of his epistles. Wisdom, knowledge, faith, and healing are mentioned among these gifts, but not one material thing is included. Paul very properly advised the Corinthians to "covet earnestly the best gifts" (I Cor. 12:31). The beautiful and familiar chapter on charity follows; here he points out that all gifts are worthless without love.

It became clear to the student as she pondered these passages that the highest and best gift she could give each of her loved ones was her own realization of his or her true selfhood. As she thought about each individual who came to mind, she endeavored to see each one as a pure spiritual idea. She did this by dwelling on the Godlike qualities manifested by each one. That was her real gift giving. When that was accomplished, ideas for material symbols of her love quickly came to mind, and her shopping was accomplished joyously and without delay or confusion.

The first example of the giving of gifts in commemoration of the advent of Christ Jesus was that of the visiting Magi, as related in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. These Wisemen brought their greatest material treasures— gold, frankincense, and myrrh—to honor the infant Jesus and the hope which he represented.

Christian Scientists, as they prepare to celebrate the joyous Christmas season, may well ask themselves: "What gifts am I bringing to the Christ, the true idea of God? Am I willing to give up my most cherished material possessions, to leave all for Christ? Am I bringing gratitude for a year of blessings, for the overcoming of sin, for health and harmony, for a higher understanding of the Christ-power? Am I bringing humility and the daily discipline which forces me to give up the earth weights which would hinder my progress Spiritward, in order to win the crown of spiritual achievement?"

The source of all true gifts is God. The Bible declares (James 1:17), "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

If there is one who is struggling with the suggestion that the Christmas season is no longer as happy as it was in former years, because young people have left the home circle or because loved ones have passed from sight, let him ponder well the unvarying nature of the Father's gifts. Love, goodness, wisdom, joy, purity, are always ours to express, and if we look about us, we shall find ample opportunities to give of these qualities to hungering hearts.

Mrs. Eddy says (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 262), "Christmas to me is the reminder of God's great gift,—His spiritual idea, man and the universe,—a gift which so transcends mortal, material, sensual giving that the merriment, mad ambition, rivalry, and ritual of our common Christmas seem a human mockery in mimicry of the real worship in commemoration of Christ's coming."

Are we really grateful enough for this great gift—the spiritual idea of man and the universe— and the understanding of this man through the Christ message now being brought to the world through Christian Science? If so, how can we show our gratitude to our Leader for her consecrated work in establishing the Cause of Christian Science? Mrs. Eddy herself answered this question in a note to her students in 1904. Referring to herself as their Leader, she said (ibid., p. 20), "Send no gifts to her the ensuing season, but the evidences of glorious growth in Christian Science."

The finest gifts we can give in gratitude to our Leader at this and every season of the year are our own spiritual growth and our increasing consecration to the Cause of Christian Science. The highest gift we can give to the world is to perpetuate and extend those tidings of great joy of which the angel spoke, and which will bring "on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2: 14).