Responsive Reading: Psalm 8 : 1, 3-6

1.     O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

3.     When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4.     What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5.     For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6.     Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.

1. Psalm 147 : 1 (to 1st ;), 8, 11

1     Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God;

8     Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.

11     The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

2. Ecclesiastes 3 : 1, 11 (to :), 14 (whatsoever)

1     To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

11     He hath made every thing beautiful in his time:

14     …whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

3. I Kings 16 : 29 (to :), 30 (to Lord)

29     And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel:

30     And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord …

4. I Kings 17 : 1, 7-9, 10 (And when) (to 4th ,), 11 (Bring), 12 (to :), 1. 13 (to ;), 14-16

1     And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

7     And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

8     And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,

9     Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.

10     And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said,

11     Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.

12     And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse:

13     And Elijah said unto her, Fear not;

14     For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.

15     And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

16     And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah.

5. I Kings 18 : 1, 2, 41-45 (to 1st .)

1     And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.

2     And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria.

41     And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.

42     So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,

43     And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times.

44     And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.

45     And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.

6. II Kings 2 : 1

1     And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

7. II Kings 4 : 38-41

38     And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets.

39     And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not.

40     So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof.

41     But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.

8. Joel 2 : 23, 25 (to 1st ,), 26 (to 2nd ,), 27 (to :), 30 (to 1st ,), 32

23     Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.

25     And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten,

26     And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied,

27     And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else:

30     And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,

32     And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

1. 331 : 16-17, 18 (He)-24

Everything in God's universe expresses Him.

He is divine Principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and there is no other self-existence. He is all-inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real and eternal and by nothing else. He fills all space, and it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and individuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind.

2. 102 : 13 (man)-15

…man, reflecting God's power, has dominion over all the earth and its hosts.

3. 139 : 4-8

From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Spirit, Mind, over matter. Moses proved the power of Mind by what men called miracles; so did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha.

4. 114 : 23-24, 27-29

Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. … In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal.

5. 209 : 16-24

The compounded minerals or aggregated substances composing the earth, the relations which constituent masses hold to each other, the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the celestial bodies, are of no real importance, when we remember that they all must give place to the spiritual fact by the translation of man and the universe back into Spirit. In proportion as this is done, man and the universe will be found harmonious and eternal.

6. 257 : 15-21

The material senses and human conceptions would translate spiritual ideas into material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic God, instead of infinite Principle, — in other words, divine Love, — is the father of the rain, "who hath begotten the drops of dew," who bringeth "forth Mazzaroth in his season," and guideth "Arcturus with his sons."

7. 520 : 23 (God)-24 (to 2nd ,), 24 (the)-1

God creates all through Mind, not through matter, … the plant grows, not because of seed or soil, but because growth is the eternal mandate of Mind. Mortal thought drops into the ground, but the immortal creating thought is from above, not from beneath. Because Mind makes all, there is nothing left to be made by a lower power. Spirit acts through the Science of Mind, never causing man to till the ground, but making him superior to the soil.

8. 268 : 6-2

Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. Materialistic hypotheses challenge metaphysics to meet in final combat. In this revolutionary period, like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with Goliath.

In this final struggle for supremacy, semi-metaphysical systems afford no substantial aid to scientific metaphysics, for their arguments are based on the false testimony of the material senses as well as on the facts of Mind. These semi-metaphysical systems are one and all pantheistic, and savor of Pandemonium, a house divided against itself.

9. 547 : 23 (The)-30

The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained. The true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal.

10. 516 : 12-21

Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light. The grass beneath our feet silently exclaims, "The meek shall inherit the earth." The modest arbutus sends her sweet breath to heaven. The great rock gives shadow and shelter. The sunlight glints from the church-dome, glances into the prison-cell, glides into the sick-chamber, brightens the flower, beautifies the landscape, blesses the earth. Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God's dominion over all the earth.

11. 125 : 21-30

The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist will find that these changes cannot affect his crops. "As a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed." The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, — he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed.

12. 14 : 25-30

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak "as one having authority."

13. 96 : 4-15

Love will finally mark the hour of harmony, and spiritualization will follow, for Love is Spirit. Before error is wholly destroyed, there will be interruptions of the general material routine. Earth will become dreary and desolate, but summer and winter, seedtime and harvest (though in changed forms), will continue unto the end, — until the final spiritualization of all things. "The darkest hour precedes the dawn."

This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace.

14. 97 : 13-20, 26 (“He)-28

The nearer a false belief approaches truth without passing the boundary where, having been destroyed by divine Love, it ceases to be even an illusion, the riper it becomes for destruction. The more material the belief, the more obvious its error, until divine Spirit, supreme in its domain, dominates all matter, and man is found in the likeness of Spirit, his original being.

"He uttered His voice, the earth melted." This Scripture indicates that all matter will disappear before the supremacy of Spirit.