Responsive Reading: Psalm 100 : 1-5

1.     Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2.     Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3.     Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4.     Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5.     For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

1. Psalm 117 : 1, 2

1     O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.

2     For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord.

2. II Kings 20 : 1-11

1     In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.

2     Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying,

3     I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.

4     And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

5     Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord.

6     And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.

7     And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

8     And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day?

9     And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?

10     And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.

11     And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.

3. Isaiah 25 : 1, 8

1     O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

8     He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.

4. John 4 : 1, 3-7, 9-11, 13-26

1     When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,

3     He left Judæa, and departed again into Galilee.

4     And he must needs go through Samaria.

5     Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

6     Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

7     There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

9     Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

10     Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

11     The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

13     Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

14     But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

15     The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

16     Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.

17     The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:

18     For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

19     The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

20     Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

21     Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

22     Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

23     But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

24     God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

25     The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

26     Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

5. John 17 : 1, 6, 17

1     These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

6     I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

17     Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

1. vii : 13-21

The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity. Contentment with the past and the cold conventionality of materialism are crumbling away. Ignorance of God is no longer the steppingstone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is Life eternal. Though empires fall, "the Lord shall reign forever."

2. 259 : 6-14

In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.

3. 286 : 1-15

To seek Truth through belief in a human doctrine is not to understand the infinite. We must not seek the immutable and immortal through the finite, mutable, and mortal, and so depend upon belief instead of demonstration, for this is fatal to a knowledge of Science. The understanding of Truth gives full faith in Truth, and spiritual understanding is better than all burnt offerings.

The Master said, "No man cometh unto the Father [the divine Principle of being] but by me," Christ, Life, Truth, Love; for Christ says, "I am the way." Physical causation was put aside from first to last by this original man, Jesus. He knew that the divine Principle, Love, creates and governs all that is real.

4. 231 : 3-11

Unless an ill is rightly met and fairly overcome by Truth, the ill is never conquered. If God destroys not sin, sickness, and death, they are not destroyed in the mind of mortals, but seem to this so-called mind to be immortal. What God cannot do, man need not attempt. If God heals not the sick, they are not healed, for no lesser power equals the infinite All-power; but God, Truth, Life, Love, does heal the sick through the prayer of the righteous.

5. 167 : 22-31

It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There is but one way — namely, God and His idea — which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.

6. 230 : 1-10

If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth? But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick. This is the salvation which comes through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.

7. 130 : 26-5

If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the supremacy of good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and unnatural to forsake it, — no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and good absent? Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem so real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by reality in order to be in harmony with God, the divine Principle of all being.

8. 120 : 17-24

The Science of Mind-healing shows it to be impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testimony of the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick, overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic.

9. 288 : 31-7

The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error, and man's real existence as a child of God comes to light. Truth demonstrated is eternal life. Mortal man can never rise from the temporal débris of error, belief in sin, sickness, and death, until he learns that God is the only Life. The belief that life and sensation are in the body should be overcome by the understanding of what constitutes man as the image of God. Then Spirit will have overcome the flesh.

10. 367 : 30-32

Because Truth is infinite, error should be known as nothing. Because Truth is omnipotent in goodness, error, Truth's opposite, has no might.

11. 368 : 2-9

The confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a coward before Truth. Divine Science insists that time will prove all this. Both truth and error have come nearer than ever before to the apprehension of mortals, and truth will become still clearer as error is self-destroyed.

12. 174 : 17-21

The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth. Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised.