Responsive Reading: Psalm 107 : 8, 9, 20, 35-38

8.     Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

9.     For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

20.     He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

35.     He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings.

36.     And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation;

37.     And sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase.

38.     He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.

1. Deuteronomy 6 : 4, 5

4     Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

5     And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

2. Proverbs 3 : 1, 2, 4, 21, 22

1     My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:

2     For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

4     So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

21     My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion:

22     So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck.

3. Matthew 4 : 1-4, 11, 23

1     Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

2     And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

3     And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

4     But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

11     Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

23     And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

4. Matthew 5 : 1, 2

1     And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

2     And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

5. Matthew 6 : 24-26, 31-33

24     No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25     Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26     Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

31     Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32     (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33     But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

6. Matthew 10 : 27, 28

27     What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.

28     And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

7. Matthew 14 : 14-22

14     And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

15     And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.

16     But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.

17     And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.

18     He said, Bring them hither to me.

19     And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

20     And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

21     And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

22     And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

8. John 6 : 24, 26, 31-33, 38, 40

24     When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.

26     Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.

31     Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

32     Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

33     For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

38     For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

40     And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

9. I Corinthians 6 : 19, 20

19     What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

20     For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

10. II Corinthians 5 : 1, 6-8

1     For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

6     Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

7     (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

8     We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

11. I Thessalonians 5 : 23 (and I)

23     ... and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. 71 : 7-9

Soul is synonymous with Spirit, God, the creative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form, which forms only reflect.

2. 477 : 20 (Identity)-2

Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to Spirit.

Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile of the Great Spirit." Separated from man, who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonentity; man, divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is, there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with God.

3. 307 : 25 (The)-30

The divine Mind is the Soul of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher law of Mind.

4. 530 : 5-12

In divine Science, man is sustained by God, the divine Principle of being. The earth, at God's command, brings forth food for man's use. Knowing this, Jesus once said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink," — presuming not on the prerogative of his creator, but recognizing God, the Father and Mother of all, as able to feed and clothe man as He doth the lilies.

5. 507 : 3-6

Spirit duly feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line of spiritual creation, thus tenderly expressing the fatherhood and motherhood of God.

6. 62 : 22-30

The divine Mind, which forms the bud and blossom, will care for the human body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal interfere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts.

The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower; if it were, the order of wisdom would be reversed. Our false views of life hide eternal harmony, and produce the ills of which we complain.

7. 442 : 22-28

Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed spiritually. St. Paul says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling:" Jesus said, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

8. 467 : 17-23

Science reveals Spirit, Soul, as not in the body, and God as not in man but as reflected by man. The greater cannot be in the lesser. The belief that the greater can be in the lesser is an error that works ill. This is a leading point in the Science of Soul, that Principle is not in its idea. Spirit, Soul, is not confined in man, and is never in matter.

9. 216 : 28-5

When you say, "Man's body is material," I say with Paul: Be "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Give up your material belief of mind in matter, and have but one Mind, even God; for this Mind forms its own likeness. The loss of man's identity through the understanding which Science confers is impossible; and the notion of such a possibility is more absurd than to conclude that individual musical tones are lost in the origin of harmony.

10. 273 : 16-28

The so-called laws of matter and of medical science have never made mortals whole, harmonious, and immortal. Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the importance of understanding the truth of being, which reveals the laws of spiritual existence.

God never ordained a material law to annul the spiritual law. If there were such a material law, it would oppose the supremacy of Spirit, God, and impugn the wisdom of the creator. Jesus walked on the waves, fed the multitude, healed the sick, and raised the dead in direct opposition to material laws. His acts were the demonstration of Science, overcoming the false claims of material sense or law.

11. 210 : 11-16

Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever manifested through man, the Master healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, feet to the lame, thus bringing to light the scientific action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies and giving a better understanding of Soul and salvation.

12. 247 : 31-11

The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony.

Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful. Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb.

13. 92 : 32-9

Do you say the time has not yet come in which to recognize Soul as substantial and able to control the body? Remember Jesus, who nearly nineteen centuries ago demonstrated the power of Spirit and said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," and who also said, "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," said Paul.

14. 223 : 3-6

Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit.

15. 9 : 17-24

Dost thou "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind"? This command includes much, even the surrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship. This is the El Dorado of Christianity. It involves the Science of Life, and recognizes only the divine control of Spirit, in which Soul is our master, and material sense and human will have no place.