Article September 7, 1912 Issue

"HE SHALL TESTIFY OF ME."

AVE GALBRAITH.

During the Master's last long talk with his disciples on the memorable occasion before the final scene in the garden of Gethsemane, he uttered these words: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." Brought up religiously, the writer used to puzzle over the meaning and significance of this promised gift of the Holy Spirit or Comforter. There seemed to be an undefined feeling that to experience the coming of the Holy Spirit a definite emotion or exaltation must be felt, which would entirely change thought and experience. In order to produce this radical change, means were frequently taken, especially during revival seasons, whereby the feelings were worked upon, sometimes by narrations of the sufferings and death of Jesus; many times by the threats of penalty for sin and fear of the judgment-day, until an almost hysterical state of mind was produced, and the upheaval consequent thereupon was pronounced the entrance of the Holy Spirit.

Too frequently, however, these emotional feelings were followed by a reaction which left the mind so dull and dead that the poor longing mortal felt that the joys of the Comforter were not for him, but only for a few kingly souls who might be able to retain the hardly earned knowledge and experience of God. What joy, then, for the seeking heart, when through the study of Christian Science one finds what the Comforter or Holy Spirit really means, namely, the Science of Christianity, the spiritual understanding of Jesus' words, as found in the Bible, and interpreted in Christian Science. Through this understanding the Scriptures are made plain to us, and the prophecies and promises in the Bible become guiding lights in our daily lives; not merely hopes for a far-off future, but realities to be utilized here and now.

Thus the Comforter comes to us in many different ways, often in the "still small voice," "soft as the breath of even," to whisper to us of the never-failing love of God, sometimes in time of seeming lack, to tell us of the ever-present abundance of good. When in pain or trouble of any kind, we hear Love speak to our thought, that we may realize the unreality of material sense. And if we go astray in the wilderness of human hopes and pleasures, the Comforter appears, armed with the sword of Truth, to drive us back to the narrow way that leadeth ever to the peaceful pastures of Soul.

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