DURING his three years' ministry Christ Jesus not only expressed the tenderest compassion for the disciples while he was with them, but he also left a wonderful promise which would comfort them and meet the human need when he was no longer in their midst. This promise is recorded in the fourteenth chapter of John, and reads as follows: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." And farther on in the same chapter he further defines this promise when he says, "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
The Master's promise is perpetual. It was intended to benefit not only the immediate disciples, but likewise all mankind for all time to come. It was the truth Jesus taught which was to comfort mortals; and in his work with the disciples he was preparing them to know and follow the Christ, Truth, through spiritual discernment. Mrs. Eddy's definition of the "Holy Ghost," as given on page 588 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," clearly elucidates the practical meaning of the Master's promise. She writes: "Holy Ghost. Divine Science; the development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love." Thus it is clear that mortals reach the fruition of the Master's promise through spiritual progress. It is through a knowledge of Truth that they can prove his teachings, and thereby find the impersonal Saviour.
The Comforter, as promised by the Master, is largely realized through an understanding of the Scriptural prophecies and their fulfillment, as they appear throughout the Bible. Spiritual vision always inspires hope, even before it is fulfilled in human experience. All down the ages prophets have been supported by this high hope. They have glanced far into the future and have strongly indicated the high destinies that would come to those who acknowledge the true God. The prophecies as they appear in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation unfold to human consciousness the spiritual reality of existence. All record of materiality is but an attempted intervention. As mortals remove the deceptions and illusions of mortal belief from thought, they find the promises welded link by link.
