Wednesday, August 13th, 2025 Testimony Meeting

Mark 1 : 1-34

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
4 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
5 And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.
6 And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;
7 And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
12 And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness.
13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.
18 And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.
19 And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.
20 And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.
21 And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.
22 And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.
23 And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,
24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.
26 And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.
28 And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.
29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30 But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.
31 And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.
32 And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.
33 And all the city was gathered together at the door.
34 And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.

Excerpts from “Science and the Senses”

98 : 9-11 next page

The National Christian Scientist Association has brought us together to minister and to be ministered unto; mutually to aid one another in finding ways and means for helping the whole human family; to quicken and extend the interest already felt in a higher mode of medicine; to watch with eager joy the individual growth of Christian Scientists, and the progress of our common Cause in Chicago, — the miracle of the Occident. We come to strengthen and perpetuate our organizations and institutions; and to find strength in union, — strength to build up, through God’s right hand, that pure and undefiled religion whose Science demonstrates God and the perfectibility of man. This purpose is immense, and it must begin with individual growth, a “consummation devoutly to be wished.” The lives of all reformers attest the authenticity of their mission, and call the world to acknowledge its divine Principle. Truly is it written: —

“Thou must be true thyself, if thou the truth would’st teach; Thy heart must overflow, if thou another’s heart would’st reach.”

Science is absolute and final. It is revolutionary in its very nature; for it upsets all that is not upright. It annuls false evidence, and saith to the five material senses, “Having eyes ye see not, and ears ye hear not; neither can you understand.” To weave one thread of Science through the looms of time, is a miracle in itself. The risk is stupendous. It cost Galileo, what? This awful price: the temporary loss of his self-respect. His fear overcame his loyalty; the courage of his convictions fell before it. Fear is the weapon in the hands of tyrants.

100 : 8-18

Past, present, future, will show the word and might of Truth — healing the sick and reclaiming the sinner — so long as there remains a claim of error for Truth to deny or to destroy. Love’s labors are not lost. The five personal senses, that grasp neither the meaning nor the magnitude of self-abnegation, may lose sight thereof; but Science voices unselfish love, unfolds infinite good, leads on irresistible forces, and will finally show the fruits of Love. Human reason is inaccurate; and the scope of the senses is inadequate to grasp the word of Truth, and teach the eternal.

101 : 31-11

God is individual Mind. This one Mind and His individuality comprise the elements of all forms and individualities, and prophesy the nature and stature of Christ, the ideal man.

A corporeal God, as often defined by lexicographers and scholastic theologians, is only an infinite finite being, an unlimited man, — a theory to me inconceivable. If the unlimited and immortal Mind could originate in a limited body, Mind would be chained to finity, and the infinite forever finite.

In this limited and lower sense God is not personal. His infinity precludes the possibility of corporeal personality. His being is individual, but not physical.

102 : 17-31

God’s ways are not ours. His pity is expressed in modes above the human. His chastisements are the manifestations of Love. The sympathy of His eternal Mind is fully expressed in divine Science, which blots out all our iniquities and heals all our diseases. Human pity often brings pain.

Science supports harmony, denies suffering, and destroys it with the divinity of Truth. Whatever seems material, seems thus only to the material senses, and is but the subjective state of mortal and material thought.

Science has inaugurated the irrepressible conflict between sense and Soul. Mortal thought wars with this sense as one that beateth the air, but Science outmasters it, and ends the warfare. This proves daily that “one on God’s side is a majority.”

104 : 9-21

In Science all being is individual; for individuality is endless in the calculus of forms and numbers. Herein sin is miraculous and supernatural; for it is not in the nature of God, and good is forever good. According to Christian Science, perfection is normal, — not miraculous. Clothed, and in its right Mind, man’s individuality is sinless, deathless, harmonious, eternal. His materiality, clad in a false mentality, wages feeble fight with his individuality, — his physical senses with his spiritual senses. The latter move in God’s grooves of Science: the former revolve in their own orbits, and must stand the friction of false selfhood until self-destroyed.

105 : 24-30

Truth destroys error. Nothing appears to the physical senses but their own subjective state of thought. The senses join issue with error, and pity what has no right either to be pitied or to exist, and what does not exist in Science. Destroy the thought of sin, sickness, death, and you destroy their existence. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”