Our subject embraces the spiritual signification of the scripture

Friends, the Bible is the book of books, — the foundation Truth of all things — yea, it is the only revelator of what God is and what God does

But for this Bible our days had withered as the grassI Pet 1:24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: Ps 102:11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass. seventeen years ago

The Book of Genesis has an importance to which no other document pretends It is not only the oldest book that is trustworthy history but the only one that contains the clear concise statement of the supremacy of Spirit over matter as when the eternal Us said let Us make man and let us make him in the image and likeness of Spirit (not matter) The spiritual origin and support of the universe and man is their only true real origin subsistence and ultimate Therefore The the entity or ego of man is Spirit and man is but the idea of himself and himself is God of which man is the reflex shadow. Not that man is God, but that man is the image and likeness of GodGen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. , and should have no other mind but the divine Mind to govern and control this image and likeness or manifestation of God named in the scripture male and female The spiritual origin and existence of man and the universe are the truth of man and the universe A material origin and existence of the universe and man, are mythology in which matter is supposed to include Spirit, and is which is the error or misstatement of being and its peculiar finality One of the proofs of our statement that man is idea and not matter is that man must disappear materially as matter to reappear spiritually or as idea — as that spiritual representative of eternal Life or God Every hour is a partial fulfillment of this statement of being and final spiritualization of all things For every material hour is mortal and hasteth to its end and even eternity the final dissolution of all material computation of hours and to the destruction of all organic structure when

Do you say I have taken away your Lord and you know not where he is laidJohn 20:13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. — that I have marred or erased man and the universe by such transcendentalism Then you do not apprehend my our meaning A picture in mind can not be maredCorrected:marred or blotted out so long as the mind that contains it is symetricalCorrected:symmetrical and eternal

Now I mean that man is one of the pictures of God's mind and this picture is a product and not a producer it is an image and reflection the Intelligence whereof is the Mind that produced it, and not that man is a separate mind from God, for then man would be a sinner and sin would render man mortal.

The only possible way for way that man to can be immortal is to have no separate mind from God for then man is governed by an unerring Mind and this produces an undying body or idea The geology and genealogy of Genesis weighed in the balance of material or speculative history is found wanting in correct data and minus the material coroboratingCorrected:corroborating circumstance. But this matters not; for possessing more directly than any other history, the spiritual evidence and fact, this is sufficentCorrected:sufficient for the ends of moral science; and what matter refutes has nothing to do with ethics, or spiritual science, and what matter is supposed to substantiate cannot neither confirm nor deny the history or existence of mind and its spiritual ideas and entity forever undisturbed by matter Rather does the material lack confirm the spiritual presence We cannot have both, as Jesus said, "ye cannot serve God and mammonMatt 6:24 ¶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. Luke 16:13 ¶No servant 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. .

When prying into profane history for cause and effect, we are not drawing from the spiritual origin of all, our only premises and conclusions of God and man — and this is our only safe starting point Matter is a mortal instructor, Spirit our immortal teacher, which then, should interpret to us the lessons that benefit and sustain man.

Material history and philosophy are only useful when their leave a material reckonings of Truth, and adopt the material reckonings give place to spiritual research into the primitive Principle that governs all where and which alone can explain all. Speculative theories based on material phenomena are the fugitive opinions of mortal mind that change and disappear — but Spiritual formula based on the constituent and qualities and powers of mind are is latent are latent Truth springing into present action and immediate and eternal harmony good

How immeasurably inferior is the one to the other The Genesis of the scripture unlike the VedasEditorial Note: The Vedas are the original scriptures of Hindu teachings and are considered the most sacred books of India. "Veda" means wisdom or knowledge. is not a collection of hymns more or less sublime or like the ZendavestaCorrected:Zend-AvestaEditorial Note: The Zoroastrian "Avesta" ("Book of the Law") is a fragmentary collection of sacred writings. Compiled over many centuries, it is rooted in the teachings of the sixth century B.C. Persian prophet Zarathustra. a speculation on the origin of all things or like the YihkingEditorial Note: An ancient Chinese sacred text in which all the permutations of yang and yin are recorded. (Eking) an unintelligible blunder

The five books of the Pentateuch form a consecutive whole, whose central points are — 1st The history of spiritual creation and being, which is the Truth of creation and Life; Secondly, the history of material creation, or Life in matter, which is the error of suppositional of suppositional existence -- and thirdly, the law from Sinai, those those spiritual rules and moral cardinal of Christian science The ten commandments are a perfect digest of wisdom whereby to regulate the routine of Life, without which those commands the science of Life would had not been expressed. The ten commandments carried out are indispensible to health, happiness and immortality, they are our central figures in the group of Metaphysical healing — ingraftedCorrected:engrafted into every one of its conditions, and the test of them all. Every member of our Association of Christian Scientists is bound by a solemn oath to obey these commandments on penalty of being expelled and and his name made public

I say it on the strength of my own experience and the authority of the scripture that I could never have discovered the great Principle of Christian healing had I lived apart from the spirit and letter of those commandments God pities our mortal stint and supplies relief out of our earnest cry for help and honest aim to do right

Of old the complaint went forth he is a glutton who was the least eatterCorrected:eater of the age, he casteth out devils, error, through the prince of devils, who gave the highest demonstration of God But that public scoff helppedCorrected:helped humility, on the one hand and was the result of their the ignorance nor on the other it could never harm the history of our blessed Master when that history was understood. The great spiritual advancement that by which our divine Master led on the centuries nearer to God was the foundation of his ability to heal both body and mind also it was caused the antagonism in between him and the age in The Jewish Rabbis ruled it spirituality out of their synnagoguesCorrected:synagogues and possibly out of their lives while Jesus never taught that our bodily senses were to should govern man and make him a creature of fed on amusements whose happiness was is obtained from the indulgence gratification of the five personal senses The animal's life in sight rises no higher than that but man was the likeness of God, Spirit who is not possessed of animality else he has lost that likeness! and can never regain it acting from this stand point of animality whose only happiness so long as his happiness consists in the things he eats and drinks the sights he beholds or the amusements of this silly world's occupation namely to eat, and to drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. When the ambitious Mother presented her two sons asking that one should sit on the right and the other on the left hand of GodMatt 20:21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. Mark 10:37 They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. the reply of Jesus was — ye know not what ye ask, are you able to drink of my cup?Matt 20:22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. Mark 10:38 But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? The cup of the man of sorrows he made the condition of that fitness, and why? because it separated man from the vain and empty lie of pleasure in sense or Life in matter and uniting thought uniting him to the joys of Soul or and those joys and satisfied the immortal cravings; for purity and Truth are the only sure foundations of bliss Without these all is lost, for none but the pure in heart shall see GodMatt 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. in other words can understand the Truth and divine economy of being that hath for its demonstration casting out error and healing

It Tis greatly wise to ask talk with our departing hours and ask them what report they bear to heaven and how they might have borne more welcome news. We are journyingCorrected:journeying on to that bourne whence no travellerCorrected:traveler returns, where happiness must come from Soul instead of sense or there can be no happiness but an outer darkness; weeping and wailing when but weeping over for mispentCorrected:misspent hours is the portion of the unwise never recalls them They only are wise who put not oil into their lamps furnished not furnish themselves with the light of the divine Love and Life to illume their path and insure their welcome [?] theirUnclear or illegibletheir home The sweetest rythmCorrected:rhythm of the psalm of Life is this — "she hath done what she could"

We will now now consider in brief explanation the directions our Master gave his disciples whom he sent forth on the true missions of Christianity