Christ and Christmas

In early 1893, Mary Baker Eddy wrote a poem titled "Christ and Christmas." She then asked James F. Gilman, who in 1892 had created sketches of Eddy's Pleasant View home in Concord, New Hampshire, if he would work with her on illustrating the poem. Gilman agreed and worked on the project for months, corresponding frequently with Eddy until his illustrations were ready by mid-July 1893. As the book moved on to publishing, Eddy hoped it would be completed by September, in time for the World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, where Christian Science would be represented at the World's Parliament of Religions. The attempt by a Concord publisher to reproduce the illustrations was a failure, however, as Gilman’s drawings were difficult to reproduce. Eddy arranged for Gilman to work with a publisher in Gardner, Massachusetts, and he returned to Concord on September 7 with gravure plate proofs. Eddy received the first printed copy on November 28; the finished book contained a title page naming Eddy as author, a copyright page, the poem interspersed with eleven illustrations, and before the "finis" page, one that read "Rev. M.B.G. Eddy, and Mr. J.F. Gilman, Artists. Mr. H. E. Carlton, Photograveur."

The book's illustrations drew far more comments than the poem itself. While the artwork's high quality was praised, there was also outrage and criticism that it lacked artistic merit and that there was a tendency to interpret a personality-based metaphysical symbolism in the illustrations. A blasphemy controversy took hold over the illustration "Christian Unity," which depicts a seated Jesus-like figure with halo, holding the hand of a standing female figure with halo. This female figure, who was said to resemble Eddy, is holding a scroll inscribed with the words "Christian Science." Eddy commented in the February 1894 issue of The Christian Science Journal, “The clergymen may not understand that the illustrations in 'Christ and Christmas' refer not to my personality, but rather foretell the typical appearing of the womanhood, as well as the manhood of God, our divine Father and Mother.” Rather than finding the book inspiring and turning back to Eddy’s primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, for healing, readers focused on the illustrations themselves in their efforts to heal. To Eddy, this "picture-healing" was not in accord with the primitive Truth that Jesus had taught or the method she had discovered. Eddy heard from a close student of his memorization and use of the poem for treatment, a practice she immediately discerned as the use of a "mental opiate." For these reasons, even though Christ and Christmas was already into its second edition, Eddy withdrew the book in January 1894.

A revised third edition of the book that included significant textual changes and illustration improvements was published in December 1897. A few copies were printed with a cropped and altered illustration "Seeking and Finding," and by the fourth edition in 1898, there were extensive changes in the illustrations "Truth Versus Error" and "The Way." There were nine editions of the book in all, with the last in 1911 receiving Eddy's approval prior to her passing. Subsequent to the major revisions in the second through fourth editions, there were only minor changes in detail. After Eddy’s passing, William Dana Orcutt, printer of Eddy’s writings for many years, wrote that because the large size of Christ and Christmas was considered by many to be difficult to hold, he was later asked to have the illustrations reduced, verses reset, and to combine the illustrated poem with other poems of Eddy’s into one volume. This smaller edition was published with leather binding in 1936 and cloth binding in 1948. Today Christ and Christmas is once again published in the larger format in a volume by itself, and advances in digital photography and printing have enabled the subtleties of Gilman’s artwork to be accurately captured from his original drawings.