Article December 19, 1977 Issue

A Guiding Star

ALICE KINSMAN SMITH

A guiding star—is that something we in today's world can see and follow? Yes, if we think of the star in its beautiful symbolism. Like the wise men we can look away from materiality and personality and raise our vision to divine guidance, which will lead us unerringly into the light of Christ.

The star the wise men followed was shedding its light for all mankind, but the wise men alone detected it and trusted its guidance. Even the material authority of a jealous Herod could not induce them to betray their precious discovery.

However dim it may have first appeared, this guiding light had become a brightly shining star by the time the wise men reached the infant Jesus. In the Preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy says: "The wakeful shepherd beholds the first faint morning beams, ere cometh the full radiance of a risen day. So shone the pale star to the prophet-shepherds; yet it traversed the night, and came where, in cradled obscurity, lay the Bethlehem babe, the human herald of Christ, Truth, who would make plain to benighted understanding the way of salvation through Christ Jesus, till across a night of error should dawn the morning beams and shine the guiding star of being." And she continues, "The Wisemen were led to behold and to follow this daystar of divine Science, lighting the way to eternal harmony."^{Science and Health, p. vii;}