ows to fall on other lives. We throw the mantle of love over all if this sunshine of love is continually in our hearts, and the world will be brighter and better because we recognize only the good and the true.

Mrs. Fillmore: We have been greatly blessed in this rainy-day session. We are sure of the earnestness of all present. The belief that rain has power to hinder from coming can only hinder those who are negative to it. We are finding out our dominion and refuse longer to be ruled by the negative thought. Thoughts are like rivulets that melt and mingle and make up the streams that feed the universal beliefs held in mind. Knowing this we must have a care to our thought tributaries. It is easy to follow in the channel of other's thought—it requires little exertion to float with the tide, but to make a channel of our own or row against the current of the world's thought, takes effort and courage.

It has been said, "Any fool can die, but it takes a brave soul to live."

"All that the Father hath is mine," claimed by our Elder Brother, and are we not of the same Almighty Parentage? And is it not given us to prove, even as he did, our dominion over all things?

Cultivate, by careful suggestion and encouragement, those traits of character in others which they should possess to make them efficient and agreeable. We sometimes try to do this by assuming an air of superiority, by criticism or by scolding. These will not do. They serve only to make the good we would commend more repellant and ugly, and confirm an obstinate opposition which should really have no foundation. Patience, persistence and appreciation must form part of the atmosphere through which we radiate the spiritual sunshine in our efforts to do good to others, or to secure their co-operation in any work. When the right chord is touched, harmonious effort will follow, and fruitful results may be counted on from every right undertaking.-E. S.

CHARLES

by

FILLMORE.

(Text from the American revised version.)

Lesson 12. December 22.

A CHRISTMAS LESSON - Matthew 2:1-12.

I. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,

2. Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we saw his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

3. And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

4.

And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ should be born,

5. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written through the prophet,

6. And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah: For out of thee shall come forth a governor, who shall be shepherd of my people Israel.

7.

Then Herod privily called the wise men, and learned of them carefully what time the star appeared.

8. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search out carefully concerning the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word, that I also may come and worship him.

9. And they, having heard the king, went their way; and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

IO. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exeeding great joy.

II. And they came into the house and saw the young child with Mary his mother; and they fell down and worshipped him; and opening their treasures they offered unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

12. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

GOLDEN TEXT- For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.-Luke 2:11.

The Bible tells of the creation of man. The first step in this creative process was the idealizing in the Mind of God of an imaginary man. Genesis 1:26.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image." The second step was the forming of this image of man. After God had finished his work and "rested on the seventh day," the second chapter says, "No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." "Man was first an image in Divine Mind, an idea of a man, which idea becomes a living soul through the inbreathing of the Divine Life.

Thus we see that the creative process is under law a mental law, and that God does his creating in a large way, just as man does in a small way. Man first imagines in mind that which he afterwards builds. in form; following in every act of his life the law that is creating him, and his creation is constantly going forward.

Man, as we find him today, is at best but a partial product of the perfect image in which Divine Mind holds him. He has not fulfilled the orderly steps involved in the bringing forth of the Image, but has fallen away of his own free will from some of its requirements. But the creative process is going steadily forward and the man that God conceived is being brought forth, through a perpetual inbreathing in soul and forming in body of the Spiritual Image.

The birth of Jesus is a description in symbolical terms of a step in this creative process of generic man. The Holy Ghost, or Holy Breath, overshadowed Mary (the soul) and she "magnified the Lord." Here is revealed the co-operative part that man takes in his own creation. What we magnify in the mind mani. fests in the body. The exalted ideas of Mary as to the character of her expected son formed in her mind a man of that type and he was born in Bethlehem of Judæa."

This higher type of man must ism than the body of the flesh.

have a finer organ. This new body is