Article June 21, 1930 Issue

Encouragement

GERTRUDE E. PHIPPS

In the forty-first chapter of Isaiah we read: "They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil." What a wonderful picture of active, cooperative, constructive work these words present to us! It was not just a few of the laborers who helped their neighbors, but every one; and, moreover, all were brethren. The goldsmith was cheered by the carpenter, who was doing an entirely different kind of work; and everyone expressed so much courage and loving interest in his neighbor's work that there was no room for discouragement.

Among the last words spoken by Jesus to his disciples before his betrayal were these: "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." And these words of encouragement were followed by his earnest prayer to his Father that the same joy and love which he had received might also be in them, bringing them all into conscious at-one-ment with God.

In this era of constructive thinking all true laborers are seeking to build in individual consciousness temples not made with hands, but temples of truth, life, and love, the spires of which shall point upward to the zenith of demonstration—health an heavenly harmony. Much loving cooperation is needed in this work. Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 518), "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good." The goldsmith may be working with finer materials than the carpenter, and to the observer his occupation may seem more agreeable, but help may be required by the one as by the other. So each needs the cheering, encouraging word, the understanding vision which sees his own work in its relation to his neighbor's and the part played by each in the construction of the whole.

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