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224 224 The Origin of Christian Science. saved.” The “bliss of a spiritual sense,” which sense as we have seen is the same as intellectual understanding, is salvation.

She says: “Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, which regenerates;” “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.” It is clear from these sentences that Mrs. Eddy considers regeneration as the rise and reign of the understanding.

This doctrine of salvation may well excite our curiosity if not our contempt. When does such a mental activity arise? Is there no salvation for children who have not yet come to the age when such a psychic phenomenon is possible for them? Or for adults who never reach it? Since Mrs. Eddy considers Pentecost to be the advent of the understanding, what kind of salvation did the disciples or the world have before that date? If everybody is saved then everyone attains this mental condition if not in this life then in the future life. So Christian Science proclaims a post-mortem probation, as Plato did and every poor reformer does, that bases salvation on works and does not understand the grace of God. Mrs. Eddy says: “Every mortal at some period here or