Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/40

24 to be constant. This certainly applies to Truth and Love understood and practised. Firmness in error will never save from sin, disease, and death.

Acquaintance with the original texts, and willingness to give up human beliefs (established by hierarchies, and

instigated sometimes by the worst passions of men), open the way for Christian Science to be understood, and make the Bible the chart of life, where the buoys and healing currents of Truth are pointed out.

He to whom “the arm of the Lord” is revealed will believe our report, and rise into newness of life with

regeneration. This is having part in the atonement; this is the understanding, in which Jesus suffered and triumphed. The time is not distant when the ordinary theological views of atonement will undergo a great change, — a change as radical as that is which has come over popular opinions in regard to predestination and future punishment.

Does erudite theology regard the crucifixion of Jesus chiefly as providing a ready pardon for all sinners who

ask for it and are willing to be forgiven? Does Spiritualism find Jesus' death necessary only for the presentation, after death, of the material Jesus, as a proof that spirits can return to earth? Then we must differ from them both.

The efficacy of the crucifixion lay in the practical affection and goodness it demonstrated for mankind. The truth had been lived among men; but until they saw that so it enabled their Master to triumph over the grave, his own disciples could not admit such an event to be possible. After the resurrection, even the unbelieving Thomas was