FEW, if any, of us have not at some time desired to be comforted, because comfort implies the alleviating of our troubles. The heart heavy with grief and separation reaches out for solace; those battling with afflictive disease, or caught in the meshes of tenacious sin, hunger for comfort and encouragement. Comfort is the common desire of everyone whose life seems frustrated and accomplishment thwarted by his own mistakes, by the acts of others, by untoward circumstances or difficult events.
The verb "to comfort" is derived from two Latin words meaning to intensify strength, and its early English meaning was to strengthen, encourage, support. The enduring popularity of the Bible is largely due to the comfort that men of many climes and races have found in the spiritual truths of being contained therein. The enduring influence of Christ Jesus largely derives from the true comfort which his words afford. He showed us that the Christ-idea, the spiritual idea of God and man which he taught and demonstrated, is the God-provided Comforter to all men in all ages. He recognized humanity's great need for this comfort, and foretold its fuller appearing as "another Comforter" which "shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26). He wished all the world to know that in his teachings and in the teachings of the Comforter all men would surely find comfort. "This Comforter," says Mary Baker Eddy, "I understand to be Divine Science" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 55).
The source of all that Jesus taught and of all that is taught by Divine Science, or Christian Science, is God, divine Mind. Only in divine Mind and in the true ideas of God, man, and the universe which it reveals is true comfort to be found for every troubled heart.
