The words of Isaiah, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God," find a response in the poem quoted by Mary Baker Eddy in her book "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 95):
"Ask God to give thee skill
In comfort's art:
That thou may'st consecrated be
And set apart
Unto a life of sympathy.
For heavy is the weight of ill
In every heart;
And comforters are needed much
Of Christlike touch."
Jesus knew how to give the needed comfort. Once when he was passing through the city of Nain he saw a funeral procession and with it the sorrowing mother, bereft of her only son. She was obviously in great need of comfort. He did not give it to her through human sympathy, which would have agreed that she had suffered irreparable loss. He gave it even as he himself had felt the comfort of Truth. He understood that no child of God has cause for grief. He told the mother not to weep, and proved that there was no reason for her tears by showing her that her son was living and not dead.
