In another connection Mrs. Eddy finds the efficacy of the Crucifixion "in the practical affection and goodness it demonstrated for mankind." But this turns out to be nothing more than that the Crucifixion offers Christ a needed opportunity for the instruction of His disciples to triumph over the grave. But since in another connection we are told He never died at all (chapter Atonement and Eucharist, paragraph "Jesus in the tomb") even this dissolves into unreality. Moreover the "eternal Christ in His spiritual selfhood never suffered."[54] Whichever road she takes here Mrs. Eddy reaches an impasse. It ought to be said, in justice to Mrs. Eddy, that her treatment of the atonement reflects the difficulty she found in the theology in which she had been trained as a girl and that there are many true insights in her contentions. She was at least seeking a vital and constructive interpretation and doubtless her observations, confused as they are, have been for her followers a real way out of a real difficulty. Here, as in so many other regions, "Science and Health" is best understood by its backgrounds. [Footnote 54: A curious and far-off echo of early Docetism which also in its own way reduced Christ's suffering to a simple seeming to suffer.] As a matter of fact there is in Christian Science absolutely no soil in which to plant the Cross as the Cross is understood in Christian theology. There is no place in Christian Science for vicarious atonement, whether by God or man; there is little place in Christian Science for redemptive suffering; there is a rather narrow region in which suffering may be considered as instructive, a guide, perhaps, to lead us out of unhappy or shadowed regions into the regions of physical and, maybe, spiritual and moral well-being, and to quench the love of sin.[55] Mrs. Eddy sometimes speaks of Christ as the Saviour but if her system be pressed to a logical conclusion she must empty the word of all the associations which it has hitherto had and make it simply the equivalent of a teacher or demonstrator. [Footnote 55: Page 36. But this is to recognize the reality of suffering. Mrs. Eddy is here on the threshold of a great truth--that suffering is an aspect of education--but she goes no further.] _Sin an Error of Mortal Mind_