Hymn 4 (Sung to the tune of Amazing Grace)

A holy air is breathing round,
A fragrance from above:
Be every thought from sense unbound,
Be every action love.

O God, unite us heart to heart,
In sympathy divine,
That we be never drawn apart,
To love not Thee nor Thine;

But by the life of Jesus taught,
And all his gracious word,
Be nearer to each other brought,
And nearer Thee, O Lord.

THE HOLY BIBLE (NLT & KJV)

Ps. 68:6 (KJV)

God setteth the solitary in families:

Gen. 24:2-4, 7, 10, 12-14, 15-19, 28, 29, 34, 37-38, 45, 48, 57-58, 63-67; 25:21

Abraham said to his oldest servant, the man in charge of his household, “Go to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son Isaac. . . . The Lord, the God of heaven, . . . will send his angel ahead of you, and he will see to it that you find a wife there for my son.

So the servant went to the town where Abraham’s brother Nahor had settled. “O Lord, God of my master, Abraham,” he prayed. “Please give me success today. . . . The young women of the town are coming out to draw water. This is my request. I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug.’ If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink, and I will water your camels, too!’—let her be the one you have selected as Isaac’s wife.”

Before he had finished praying, he saw a young woman named Rebekah coming out with her water jug on her shoulder. Rebekah was very beautiful and old enough to be married. . . . Running over to her, the servant said, “Please give me a little drink of water from your jug.” “Yes, my lord,” she answered, “have a drink. . . . “I’ll draw water for your camels, too.” The man bowed low and worshiped the Lord.

Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, who ran out to meet the man at the spring.

“I am Abraham’s servant,” he explained. “And the Lord has greatly blessed my master; he has become a wealthy man. . . . My master made me take an oath. He said, ‘Do not allow my son to marry one of these local Canaanite women. Go instead to my father’s house, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son. Before I had finished praying in my heart, I saw Rebekah coming out with her water jug on her shoulder. Then I bowed low and worshiped the Lord . . . because he had led me straight to my master’s niece to be his son’s wife. “

“Well,” they said, “we’ll call Rebekah and ask her what she thinks.” So they called Rebekah. “Are you willing to go with this man?” they asked her. And she replied, “Yes, I will go.”

Meanwhile, Isaac, whose home was in the Negev, had returned from Beer-lahai-roi. One evening as he was walking and meditating in the fields, he looked up and saw the camels coming. When Rebekah looked up and saw Isaac, she quickly . . . covered her face with her veil. Then the servant told Isaac everything he had done. And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and she became his wife. He loved her deeply. Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins.

Gen. 1:27-28 (KJV)

God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,

Ruth 1:1-5, 8, 16, 22; 2:3, 8, 10; 3:11; 2:11-12; 4:13

A man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion . . . .Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.

Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” So Naomi returned from Moab, and accompanied by her daughter-in-law Ruth the young Moabite woman. In the late spring, And they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father-in-law, Elimelech. Then Boaz said to Ruth, “I have been made fully aware of everything that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people that you did not know before. Everyone in town knows you are a virtuous woman. So Boaz took Ruth into his home, and she became his wife. The Lord enabled her to become pregnant, and she gave birth to a son.

Prov. 31:10-12, 20, 25-28

Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. She extends a helping hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy. She is clothed with strength and dignity, Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her.

Luke 1: 26, 31-35

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph. The angel said, “”Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. “Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.

Matt. 1:19-20

Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save people from their sins.”

Matt. 19:3-12

Some Pharisees came and tried to trap [Jesus] with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ And he said, “‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”

“Then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful.”

Jesus’ disciples then said to him, “If this is the case, it is better not to marry!”

“Not everyone can accept this statement,” Jesus said. “Only those whom God helps. Some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry[e] for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

Matt 22:30 (KJV)

SH 61:30-31

The scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity.

SH 588:11

There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence; man and woman unchanged forever in their individual characters, even as numbers which never blend with each other, though they are governed by one Principle. All the objects of God’s creation reflect one Mind, and whatever reflects not this one Mind, is false and erroneous, even the belief that life, substance, and intelligence are both mental and material.

SH 582:14-20

Bride. Purity and innocence, conceiving man in the idea of God; a sense of Soul, which has spiritual bliss and enjoys but cannot suffer.

Bridegroom. Spiritual understanding; the pure consciousness that God, the divine Principle, creates man as His own spiritual idea, and that God is the only creative power.

SH 57:4-11, 15-19

Union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes completeness. The masculine mind reaches a higher tone through certain elements of the feminine, while the feminine mind gains courage and strength through masculine qualities. These different elements conjoin naturally with each other, and their true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexes should be loving, pure, tender, and strong.

Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet the demands of the affections, and should never weigh against the better claims of intellect, goodness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love.

SH 58:7

Unselfish ambition, noble life-motives, and purity, — these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute individually and collectively true happiness, strength, and permanence.

SH 60:4-8

Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessary to the formation of a happy and permanent companionship. The beautiful in character is also the good, welding indissolubly the links of affection.

SH 66:21-27

Husbands and wives should never separate if there is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the logic of events than for a wife precipitately to leave her husband or for a husband to leave his wife. If one is better than the other, as must always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good company.

SH 65:8-10, 13, 25

Divorces should warn the age of some fundamental error in the marriage state. The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of the age, struggling against the advancing spiritual era. Beholding the world’s lack of Christianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home happy, the human mind will at length demand a higher affection. Matrimony, which was once a fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery footing, and man must find permanence and peace in a more spiritual adherence.

SH 56:15

Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourge of all races, “the pestilence that walketh in darkness, . . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday.” The commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” is no less imperative than the one, “Thou shalt not kill.”

SH 234:32-3

Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.

SH 68:6

We ought to weary of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which hinders our highest selfhood.

SH 60:16, 31-6

Marriage should improve the human species, becoming a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to man, and a centre for the affections. This, however, in a majority of cases, is not its present tendency, and why? Because the education of the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations,  — passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment, display, and pride, — occupy thought.

Physical sense, not discerning the true happiness of being, places it on a false basis. Science will correct the discord, and teach us life’s sweeter harmonies. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real enjoyment. The good in human affections must have ascendency over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happiness will never be won.

SH 56:7

Marriage is the legal and moral provision for generation among human kind. Until the spiritual creation is discerned intact, is apprehended and understood, and His kingdom is come as in the vision of the Apocalypse, — where the corporeal sense of creation was cast out, and its spiritual sense was revealed from heaven, — marriage will continue, subject to such moral regulations as will secure increasing virtue.

SH 64:26

Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, marriage will continue. Let not mortals permit a disregard of law which might lead to a worse state of society than now exists. Honesty and virtue ensure the stability of the marriage covenant. Spirit will ultimately claim its own, — all that really is, — and the voices of physical sense will be forever hushed.

SH 61:4-9, 11

The good in human affections must have ascendency over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happiness will never be won. The attainment of this celestial condition would improve our progeny, diminish crime, and give higher aims to ambition. The offspring of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, better balanced minds, and sounder constitutions.

272:19-25

It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization of daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce of material existence; it is chastity and purity, in contrast with the downward tendencies and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity, which really attest the divine origin and operation of Christian Science.

SH 57:1

Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society, and without it one cannot attain the Science of Life.

SH 249:5 (only)

Let the “male and female” of God’s creating appear.

SH 638-639

[SAVED FROM INSANITY AND SUICIDE]

. . . . While Christian Science was very new to me, I attended an experience meeting in First Church of Christ, Scientist, Chicago. A gentleman told of an unhappy woman who was about to separate from her husband. This gentleman had asked her if she did not love her husband. She replied, “No; when I married him I did, but not now.” He told her God made man in His image and likeness, and that He is perfect. He said to her, “Go home and see only God’s perfect man; you don’t need to love a sinful mortal such as you have been looking upon.” The lady followed his advice, as he told her there is no separation in divine Mind. In a short time peace and harmony were in her home, and both husband and wife became members of a Christian Science church.

This testimony was like a message from heaven to me. I knew what had taken place in that home could take place in my unhappy home where there was neither rest nor peace. I hopefully took up my cross, and step by step my burden grew lighter, as I journeyed along, realizing the presence of the Christ, Truth, that indeed makes us free. Not all at once did any outward change appear, but at the end of three years all was peace, all the members of the family attending church together and realizing that there is but one Mind.  — E. J. B., Superior, Wis.

SH 65:3

May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar to turn the water into wine and to give to human life an inspiration by which man’s spiritual and eternal existence may be discerned.

Love the Lord thy God:
Love is staff and rod
For heart and soul and mind.
In this command forever strong,
To silence thoughts of wrong
All laws fulfillment find.

Here we rest content:
Good from God is sent
Where seeds of Love are sown.
Who as himself his neighbor loves,
By constant purpose proves
His neighbor’s good his own.

They whose every thought
Still from Love is sought,
In Soul, not flesh, abide.
Love’s presence gives a joy untold:
Now may we all behold
The Spirit and the bride.

Happy the man whose heart can rest,
Assured God’s goodness ne’er will cease;
Each day, complete, with joy is blessed,
God keepeth him in perfect peace.

God keepeth him, and God is one,
One Life, forevermore the same,
One Truth unchanged while ages run;
Eternal Love His holiest name.

Dwelling in Love that cannot change,
From anxious fear man finds release;
No more his homeless longings range,
God keepeth him in perfect peace.

In perfect peace, with tumult stilled,
Enhavened where no storms arise,
There man can work what God hath willed;
The joy of perfect work his prize.