Responsive Reading: Psalm 116 : 1-9

1.     I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

2.     Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

3.     The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

4.     Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

5.     Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.

6.     The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.

7.     Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

8.     For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

9.     I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

1. Proverbs 3 : 5-8, 11, 12, 21 (keep)-26

5     Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6     In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

7     Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

8     It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

11     My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:

12     For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

21     …keep sound wisdom and discretion:

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

23     Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble.

24     When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.

25     Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh.

26     For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.

2. Luke 4 : 14-19, 32

14     And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

15     And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

16     And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

17     And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

18     The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

19     To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

32     And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.

3. Mark 5 : 21-24 (to ;), 35-42

21     And when Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto the sea.

22     And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet,

23     And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.

24     And Jesus went with him;

35     While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?

36     As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.

37     And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James.

38     And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.

39     And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.

40     And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying.

41     And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.

42     And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment.

4. John 5 : 24, 25

24     Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

25     Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

5. Hebrews 2 : 1-3, 9, 10 (to 4th ,), 14, 15

1     Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

2     For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward;

3     How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;

9     But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

10     For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory,

14     Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

15     And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

6. I Corinthians 15 : 51-54

51     Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52     In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

53     For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

54     So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

1. 470 : 21-24, 32-5

God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression of God's being.

The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.

2. 246 : 27 (Life)-28 (to 2nd .)

Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal.

4. 203 : 24-25 (to 1st .), 31-11

Death is not a stepping-stone to Life, immortality, and bliss.

God, divine good, does not kill a man in order to give him eternal Life, for God alone is man's life. God is at once the centre and circumference of being. It is evil that dies; good dies not.

All forms of error support the false conclusions that there is more than one Life; that material history is as real and living as spiritual history; that mortal error is as conclusively mental as immortal Truth; and that there are two separate, antagonistic entities and beings, two powers, — namely, Spirit and matter, — resulting in a third person (mortal man) who carries out the delusions of sin, sickness, and death.

5. 303 : 28-15

Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle. When the evidence before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and Truth.

It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Neither death, nor life, ... nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God." This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. The perfect man — governed by God, his perfect Principle — is sinless and eternal.

6. 242 : 9-14

There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality — to have no other consciousness of life — than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses.

7. 289 : 4-6, 14-20, 31-22

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.

The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still overcomes death proves the "king of terrors" to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process.

Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit, — of Life, not of matter. Because Life is God, Life must be eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I am, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase.

If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of man's being are not in the least understood before what is termed death overtakes mortals, they will rise no higher spiritually in the scale of existence on account of that single experience, but will remain as material as before the transition, still seeking happiness through a material, instead of through a spiritual sense of life, and from selfish and inferior motives. That Life or Mind is finite and physical or is manifested through brain and nerves, is false. Hence Truth comes to destroy this error and its effects, — sickness, sin, and death. To the spiritual class, relates the Scripture: "On such the second death hath no power."

If the change called death destroyed the belief in sin, sickness, and death, happiness would be won at the moment of dissolution, and be forever permanent; but this is not so. Perfection is gained only by perfection. They who are unrighteous shall be unrighteous still, until in divine Science Christ, Truth, removes all ignorance and sin.

8. 291 : 9-18

Mortals need not fancy that belief in the experience of death will awaken them to glorified being.

Universal salvation rests on progression and probation, and is unattainable without them. Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of "the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.

9. 427 : 13-14, 29-14

Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be material.

The dream of death must be mastered by Mind here or hereafter. Thought will waken from its own material declaration, "I am dead," to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, "There is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor reaction."

Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus' way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and immortality. Man's privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, — this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, "whose builder and maker is God."