"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," cried Isaiah (40:1), voicing the words of the Lord. The prophet, feeling the great need of his people for the tender love of God, pictured Him as a Mother and also as a Shepherd who "shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young" (verse 11). Immediately preceding this description is a verse which points to this tender One as having a "strong hand," whose "arm shall rule for him."

So we find the tenderness of God as Mother accompanied by the strength of the Father. This is quite in keeping with the basic meaning of the word comfort, which comes from the Latin confortare, meaning "to strengthen much." To comfort, therefore, is not merely to soothe, as when a mother takes her baby in her arms, but it is also to give such encouragement as to strengthen the fainting heart and enable the sufferer to go on his way rejoicing in his ability to work out his own salvation.

Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah for such a Saviour, and he referred to himself as a shepherd who would give his life for his sheep, to whom he would give everlasting life. He taught and he preached, but above all he healed the sick, restoring them to strength and usefulness; he raised the dead, restoring them to those who mourned for them; he forgave the sinners, restoring them to righteousness. His ministry was the exercise of the mercy and loving-kindness of God, but his rebuke of error was powerful.

It is interesting to note in the case of the man who had an infirmity for thirty-eight years that Jesus first healed him, thus expressing to him the tender love of the motherhood of God. Later Jesus warned him sternly not to return to a sinful state lest it bring a worse condition upon him. First the tender ministration of physical healing, and then the strengthening correction of error.

Like Isaiah, Jesus knew the need and the yearning of the human heart for comfort, and before leaving his disciples he promised that he would not leave them comfortless, that he would send to them the Comforter. With this Comforter he promised joy and peace and power to perform even greater works than he had done. This Comforter, then, was to give comfort with strength.

Today Mary Baker Eddy has revealed to us in Christian Science this promised Comforter, "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17), which makes all things plain and which enables mankind to prove the teachings of Christ Jesus. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy expresses the yearning of her heart to comfort the sorrowing, heal the sick, and reform the sinner. She says (p. 226): "I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servitude to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them, rather than Mind. The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage." She saw that it was not enough just to relieve suffering, but that all must be brought to know God as Spirit and themselves as truly His image and likeness, for with this understanding would come the discernment of the unreality of matter.

Her earnest desire to help all mankind was answered. She perceived the Principle that Jesus demonstrated and set forth the rules by which all may follow his example and demonstrate this Principle. She taught many students how to apply these rules and prepared them to teach others. Through the understanding which Science and Health gives, Christian Scientists are able to continue these good works with ever-increasing power. But first must come the desire to heal. In "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy quotes this verse by A. E. Hamilton (p. 95):

This Christlike touch is always tender but strong.

While responding with tenderness to the need for love, our Leader did not withhold the rebuke to error. Seeing man as unfallen and complete, including no evil or discord, she destroyed sin and sickness and restored the patient to health and holiness. She said (Science and Health, p. 514), "Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit." This combination of tenderness and might is necessary for true comfort.

The practitioner's office must always be one where the comfort of the Christ is expressed. Here grief is healed as spiritual joy replaces the sorrows of sense. Here self-will is turned into repentance as the loving will of the Father is substituted for the selfishness of mortal mind. Here limited and fearful human belief is replaced with infinite spiritual ideas and abundance is proved to be the forever fact. Here disease fades away in the light of spiritual understanding, which reveals that evil does not belong to man as God's reflection. So the practitioner brings peace, as well as courage, to the troubled heart.

When the writer first turned to Christian Science for help, she was in such distress that, like a child, she seemed to need the comforting assurance of God's loving care. The practitioner tenderly expressed to her this loving comfort, and later, when able to bear it, she was shown the errors that needed to be overcome. Sometimes an error that threatens to overwhelm one must be uncovered, but when one is shown that error is always an imposed belief, never belonging to God or to one's true selfhood, there is true comfort, for the error, being seen for what it is, is self-destroyed.

The first stanza of Hymn No. 174 in the Christian Science Hymnal expresses the comforting touch of God, which Isaiah felt, Jesus demonstrated, and our Leader presented in her revelation of the Comforter:

And as indicated in the closing stanza of this hymn, let us turn to Christian Science to reveal the holy presence of our Father-Mother Love, comforting us in every need: