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THE SYSTEM
OF
THE DIVINE INFINITE CALCULUS
Julie Olive Treadwell
We are here today to talk about
Christian Science. We are not merely considering religion, we are
considering Science. There is no time element in Science. Mrs. Eddy
tells us, “Christ’s Christianity is the chain of scientific being
reappearing in all ages, maintaining its correspondence with the
Scriptures and uniting all periods in the desiga of God.” She also tells
us in Science and Health p 546 line 23, “Christian Science
is dawning upon a material age. The great spiritual facts of being, like
rays of light, shine in the darkness, though the darkness, comprehending
them not, may deny their reality. The proof that the system stated in
this book is Christianly scientific resides in the good this system
accomplishes, for it cures on a divine demonstrable Principle which all
may understand.
If mathematics should present a
thousand different examples of one rule, the proving of one example
would authenticate all the others.. A simple statement of Christian
Science, if demonstrated by healing, contains the proof of all here said
of Christian Science. If one of the statements in this book is true,
every one must be true, for not one departs from the stated system and
rule. You can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of healing,
and so ascertain if the author has given you the correct interpretation
of Scripture.”
Today we are going to talk about
Mrs. Eddy’s system. She tells us on page 20
in S&H line
25 “Material substances or mundane formations, astronomical
calculations, and all the paraphernalia of speculative theories, based
on the hypnothesis of material law or life and intelligence resident in
matter, will ultimately vanish, swallowed up in the infinite calculus of
Spirit.”
That word calculus brings
visions of advanced math and difficult propositions to some thought. But
the younger generation does not find it frightening as thanks to the
computers they are learning to reason with the use of symbols.
In our human experience we can
only reason by symbols, Mrs. Eddy says. Our highest sense of infinite
good in this mortal sphere, she tells us, is but the sign and symbols,
not the substance of good. And again in Science and Health she
tells us “Spiritual teaching must always be by symbols” not sometimes
but always.
Then we looked up in Webster
what he had to say about colculus. The first definition was,
“a small pebble or stone” how often that word is used in the Bible,
that symbol, the symbol of a stone, the stone the builders rejected
many times, the word stone and it is a word meaning calculus. Webster
goes on to say, in higher math a method of calculation, the use of
symbols, and differential calculus, the branch of math that deals with
the infinitely small differences between consecutive values of a
variable quantity, and with their relation to the constant on which they
depend. And here in Christian Science the constant upon which all
depends is God.
We are going to look at the
system, the calculus Mrs. Eddy left in Science and Health.
Why? Because in the same way that you correct 2+2=5 with 2+2=4 you
can correct every error with Truth.
The Bible says, “Before ye
call I shall answer.” The minute you begin to know yourself as God knows
you creation starts and then that knowing becomes substantial. And the
minute it becomes substantial it becomes identified with God and then
its provable. It proves itself and the self of Love, God, is Love’s idea
man, you.
The things we are going to talk
about today are not new although when I first heard them at a Christian
Science lecture given by my teacher under the auspices of The Mother
Church I asked her, “Where did you learn that?” as it sounded new to
me. She said, “It’s all in Science and Health.
I hadn’t known then that John
Doorly had published an article in the Journal of May 1938 titled
“The Numerals Of Infinity”, voicing the truths of the seven
days of creation and
their relationship to the synonymous terms Mrs. Eddy has given us for
God. I had never paid particular attention to the seven days as
perhaps you hadn’t before now.
Before we start to look at it
together let’s turn to Science and Health page 463:5-20, “Teacher
and student should also be familiar with the obstetrics taught by this
Science. To attend properly the birth of the new child, or divine idea,
you should so detach mortal thought front its material conceptions, that
the birth will be natural and safe. Though gathering new energy, this
idea cannot injure its usefhl surroundings in the travail of spiritual
birth. A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this
truth removes properly whatever is offensive. The new idea, conceived
and born of Truth and Love, (Truth, Christian and Love, Science) is clad
in white garments. Its beginning will be meek, its growth stlLrdy, and
its maturity undecaying. When this new birth takes place, the Christian
Science infant is born of the Spirit, born of God, and can cause the
mother no more suffering. By this we know that Truth is here and has
flulfilled its perfect work.”
As we open our thought to the new
idea and detach mortal thought from its material conceptions we shall
give birth to the new concept easily. We don’t have to struggle to
understand or see it. We don’t need to see all of it right now. It will
unfold in an orderly fashion. This is a holy moment, its not me talking
to you it is Mind revealing to each one of us what it is that we need to
see more clearly, what God is, to know God, to hear His word and feel
His presence.
From time immemorial the One
divine Being has been the theme of spiritual seekers. Today, thanks to
Mrs. Eddy who has given us the system of Christian Science we can
know God and be Godlike for as it says in Genesis, we are His
image and likeness.
Let’s open Science and Health
to page 146 to see what Mrs. Eddy tells us about the system,
line 2-12, “The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of
Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed
more or less by our systems of medicine. The first dolatry was faith in
matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather
than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord,
health and harmony have been sacrificed. Such systems are barren of the
vitality of spiritual power, by which material sense is made the servant
of Science and religion becomes Christlike.” Then down to line 23-5,
“Divine Science derives its sanction from the Bible, and the divine
origin of Science is demonstrated through the holy influence of Truth in
healing sickness and sin. This healing power of Truth must have been far
anterior to the period in which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as “the
Ancient of days.” It lives through all Life, and extends throughout all
space.
Divine metaphysics is now reduced
to a system, to a form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought of
the age in which we live. This system enables the leaner to demonstrate
the divine Principle, upon which Jesus’ healing was based, and the
sacred rules for its present application to the cure of disease.” Notice
the two headings there “Christian Science as old as God” and “Reduction
to system.”
The diagram I passed out is
called, The Chart. It has on it the “15 root notions” of
Mrs. Eddy’s system. Her capitalized terms.
One of the world’s great thinkers
was a man called Leibniz, a German, who discovered the differential
calculus. What he was most interested in was not the differential
calculus but in the possibility of finding a calculus for the ideas of
reality. He spent 50 years trying to find a few fundamental “root
notions”. He knew that if he could decide on certain, definite, “root
notions of reality” he could easily symbolize them. Just as the “root
notions” of music have been symbolized by the seven notes; and the “root
notions” of math by the ten digits; then he could put them into an
intelligent calculus through which all men could learn and use them. He
failed because he couldn’t decide on those “root notions of reality”.
Now, these “root notions of
reality” are contained in the Days of Creation which began the
Bible and Mrs. Eddy put them into the idiom of today when she gave
the answer to the question, “What ls God” and further implicated by the
use of the Capital letters throughout her textbook
In My. p225 Mrs. Eddy wrote an
article titled, “Capitalization” in which she said, “A correct
use of capital letters in composition caps the climax of the old “new
tongue.” Christian Science is not understood by the writer or the reader
who does not comprehend where capital letters should be used in writing
about Christian Science.” And then again in My. p31
7, “The liberty that
I have taken with capitalization, in order to express the “new tongue,”
has well-nigh constituted a new style of language.” In her textbook she
capitalizes seven synonymous terms denoting the seven days.
Let’s look at them together in
the Bible in Genesis I:
IN the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that
it was good
and God divided the light from the darkness.
5
And God called the light Day, and
the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the
first day.
(Mrs. Eddy defines that first
day as Mind; the creative power, all power, the law.)
6 And God said, Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from
the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament
Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.
(Mrs. Eddy calls the second
day Spirit; that which separates, that which is itself pure, that
which gives order, development, that which is substance.)
9 And God said, Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry
land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land
Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and
God saw that it
was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the
earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth
grass, and herb yielding seed a:fter his kind, and the tree
yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God
saw that it was
good.
13 And the evening and the
morning were the third day.
(Mrs. Eddy calls the third day
Soul; identification, definiteness, identity, a record,
ressurection, the seed within itself)
14 And God said, Let there be
lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;
and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in
the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights;
the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night: he made
the stars also.
17 And God set them in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and
over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw
that it was good.
19 And the evening and the
morning were the fourth day.
(Mrs. Eddy calls the fourth
day Principle. She defines it as structuring and system and
government.)
20 And God said, Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl
that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales,
and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and
God saw that it was
good.
22 And God blessed them, saying,
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl
multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the
morning were the fifth day
(Mrs. Eddy called the fifth
day Life;
multiplication, inspiration, individuality.)
24 And God said, Let the earth
bring forth the living creat ire after his kind, cattle, and creeping
thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the
earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it
was good
26 And God said, Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth.
27 So God created man in his
own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have
given you every herb bearing seed, which is
upon the face of all the earth,
and every tree, in the which is
the fruit of a tree yielding
seed; to you it shall be for meat
30 And to every beast of the
earth, and to every fowl of tFe air, and to every thing that creepeth
upon the earth, wherein there is
life, I have given
every green herb for meat: and it
was so.
31 And God saw every thing that
he had made, and, behold, it was
very good. And the evening and
the morning were the sixth day
(Mrs. Eddy called the sixth
day Truth she refers to as man, as the Christ, as idea, as
dominion.)
CHAPTER 2
1 THUS the heavens and the earth
were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God
ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from
all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh
day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his
work which God created and made.
(Mrs. Eddy called the
seventh day
Love, it’s the day of resL, it’s
the day of Science and fulfillment, it is the Motherhood and it is the
design and plan.
These are the steps of creation;
remember its rather like the steps of a jig saw puzzle. You take the lid
off the box, you pour out the pieces let there be ideas and thought,
Mind. Turn them all up the right way, you might call that getting the
spiritual view so that none of them is upside down; the second
day of Spirit, the
firmament that separates. The third day of Soul you identil3’ the
edge, the sky, you begin to see where they belong that third day of
identity. And the fourth day, Principle, is when you realize
there is a principle involved; you can’t force them where they don’t
belong for that would only rupture the whole so you obey the principle.
On the fifth day, Life, the minute you obey the Principle it
starts to move into a sense of action, freedom, and movement takes
place. On the sixth day of Truth the last piece goes in and its
true and its done. But the seventh day, the seventh step is where
you turn the box over and say, “of course that was possible because the
picture was there all the time.” Unless perfection exists we would never
go looking for it.
The steps of anything unfold in
that fashion. Mrs. Eddy, John Doorly, no one invented it. It is the way
Being unfolds.
This order: Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth, Love is called the Creative Order and
Mrs. Eddy gives it to us in Recapitulatior!. This is the
nature of God; where, what, I, God Am, declaring or revealing myself
to be.
We can see how helpful this is in
practice when we see what each day or snonym uncovers and
denies its so called opposite:
1, God Am MIND. 1 am not mortal
mind. I am power I am not powerless. I am creator there is no other
creator. I am law there is no lawlessness.
1, God Am SPIRIT. I am not
matter. I am pure. I am not dualistic.
1, God Am SOUL. I am definite,
identified. I am understanding. I am not indefinite or not unidentified.
I am not ignorance or ~~sunderstanding.
1, God Am PRINCIPLE. 1 am system.
I am government and structure. I am not opinions~ persons, isims and
ologies.
I, God Am LIFE. individuality,
inspiration. I am not death and depression.
I, God Am TRUTH. I am the whole
Truth. I am not erroi. I am not the mingling of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
I, God Am LOVE- fulfillment,
perfection, an integrated whole, all good. I am not unfulfilled,
fragmented, fear or hate
Let’s go now to the second set of
capital letters.
God did not create the world and
leave town. He did not abdicate His power. He operates Elis kingdom..
The nature of God is
expressed in the seven days, the synonymous terms, the WORD of
God. But God acts and this action is expressed as the CHRIST, the
operative truth that constantly comes to remove anything unlike God.
This operation is described in the Bible. it is the highest Bible
teaching given by John, the Revelator in Revelation and called,
“The City Foursquare”. Mrs. Eddy tells us in the Apocalypse that this
city has four cardinal points which she tells us are:
The WORD, the North in Bible
symbols.
The CHRIST, the East.
CHRISTIANITY, the South.
SCIENCE, the West.
She explains the operation within
this city, or consciousness, in Science and Health pp 11 5& 116.
She gives us here first the “Scientific Translation of Immortal Mind”,
there she gives the seven synonymous terms in a different order than the
one we were just discussing. Here she says, Divine Principle, Life,
Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind; she is saying that subjective Being,
called God, whose nature we just discussed is operating as
Principle, Life, Truth and Love to translate anything unlike God back to
God; or as she tells us in Science and Health, exchanging the
objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.
Once we see these absolute
formations, orders, individualized in Spirit and expressed in Mind one
no longer is dealing with matter, or dualism, and thus we can come forth
in the Third Degree given on p.1I6
she calls it
Understanding, and here we have the seven again given as: wisdom,
Mind; purity, Spirit; spiritual understanding, Soul; power, spiritual
power, Principle; love with a small I, Life, to lay down the mortal
concept is Love; health, Truth, the whole and nothing but the whole,
that holiness, the wholeness of Love.
This activity of the CHRIST
brings us forth into CHRISTIANITY the outcome of what I, God Am;
expressed by you, man, is demonstration. Its where we take the idea and
express it in ideas. It is where divinity embraces humanity and Truth
annihilates error, demonstration takes place, and here we see it
expressed in still another order of the seven. For in
CHRISTIANITY it is Principle operates as idea, as definite, the seed
within itself that is reflected in Spirit then seen to be manifested in
Mind. So the outcome of this is, CHRISTIANITY~ given in the order oF
synonymous terms, she gives us on page 587:6-7. Here Principle is
operating the idea which came forth perfect in Soul, the definite idea,
the seed within itself and this in Spirit is reflected everywhere. Here
in CHRISTIANITY we are talking about the One Being demonstrated in the
many, unity in diversity, relationship of everything to everything else
because, and only because God, Mind created it and the Mind here
expressed in ChRISTIANITY is the Mind of Christ.
We are dealing here only with the
outcome of the WORD and of CHRIST and no longer with persons and things,
only ideas. We have reached metaphysics. We have left the physical
behind and we are in the transitional stage.
From here in this orderly fashion
we have been taken, we touch SCIENCE. SCIENCE is the timeless,
spaceless, Being of Principle and idea. It is where we have come from
metaphysics, the study of ideas, to the recognition that Principle and
its idea is One, infinitely expressed.
This WORD of God, this CFIRIST,
this CHRISTIANITY is really all one thing, it’s the only reality and it
is all that is going on within Principle. The symbol for this is, The
Golden Candlestick which Moses was told to make after their pattern
which was “shown thee in the Mt”. It had one main shaft and three
branches on each side. The main shaft represents Principle and the three
branches on one side represent Mind, Spirit, Soul and the other Life,
Truth Love. Life and Soul constitute the WORD of Life; Truth and Spirit
the CHRIST reflected; Love and Mind are the fulfillment of CFIRISTIANITY
the infinite relationship of God made manifest through the metaphysics
of Mind. And Principle here is the essence of SCIENCE itself
The world today awaits the
Messiah. Having not accepted Jesus as the One chosen of God the Jews are
expecting their King, now. They understand from Bible history
that the 6OOO~ year period is the time foretold.
Christendom meanwhile awaits the
Second Advent, also, now. How do they come to the conclusion that this
is the time? Well, the prophets, while in exile in Babylon, rewrote the
Scriptures. It was they, in their priestly document that put the seed
plot of the seven days into Genesi9 I and then structured
the rest of the Bible to conform to it. Peter hints at this when
he says, “a day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” Think how
ii: would
take a thousand years to perfect the idea of Mind, a second thousand to
fulfill Spirit, etc.
Thus it is that in the Bible
that the first day of Mind is symbolized by Adam and Eve; the
physical concept of Cain, the moral of Abel and the spiritual of Seth
leading to the seventh generation when Enoch walked with God.
The second day of Spirit
is symbolized by the story of Noah and his three sons; Ham, the
physical, Shem the moral and Japheth the spiritual. Other symbols here
are the Ark, the covenent of the bow of promise, ;tanding for the
seventh; and the story shows that there is always salvation from the
floods of mortality. If these floods are properly handled they will lift
up your Ark, your understanding.
Then in the
3,000
year period at the
point of Soul, definiteness and understanding, you come to the
experiences of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Jacob’s 12 sons, Moses and
the entrance into the Pro rnised Land, the identification of
divine Principle.
The
4,000 year period, corresponding to the
fourth day of Principle, was the prophetic age and the writing of
Genesis 1 symbolizing the divine system of metaphysics.
Then in the
5,000
year period of Life
the supreme symbol, Jesus Christ; his healings, his teachings and his
demonstrations came forth. This was the period followed by “our day”,
the year period of Christ, Truth, itself where Mrs. Eddy came and gave
us, “The Key To The Scriptures”.
The
7,000
year period is the
door that is opening at this time. It is at the turn of the Century that
we enter that millineum. It is the period of Love defined in Science
and Health as Motherhood, universality, oneness, structure and
system. That is why we see all of these things coming to a conclusion at
this time.
God rested on the seventh day.
Nothing new was created but all that came forth will be understood.
We know that in Science and Health, Love stands for that Oneness,
for Science, for womanhood, for universality and all of these are the
things we see as we are coming from the sixth to the seventh
day at our present time.
Is it any wonder that everyone
expects the Christ to come knowing the Truth, the Day of Truth; the
6000th
year period is now. They know
that before the Century ends, Truth, the Christ, will be here. But Mrs.
Eddy tells us the “Truth is revealed, it needs only to be practiced”.
The last category of capital
terms used by Mrs. Eddy in her writings is:
Science, divine Science, Absolute
Christian Science, Christian Science. This is the ascending or
descending depicted in the Bible as Jacob’s ladder. As we see
every situation in the seven hued white, or in the light of the WORD of
Life, then the CHRIST translation takes over and shows us the answer. We
live it by obeying it and thus we go on from “glory unto glory”. Glory
is always a seventh day word. Mrs. Eddy says this is Life, ever
appearing and ever continuing to appear because of its inexhaustible
source.
Love, the seventh day of
fulfillment is always calling forth its idea. Love is the catalyst, the
end as in the beginning and the beginning in the end, without true
beginning or end, just ever spiraling upward. In computer language we
have input, process or black box, output and feedback.
All this is what you are. You are
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love expressed because there
is nothing else.
Dorothy Rieke put this very
wonderfully in an Association Address that has been widely circulated in
the Christian Science field. Let me just share that part of it with you,
she says, “I shall never forget the illumination and joy which flooded
my consciousness when it was first revealed to me that 1 was an immortal
child of God and not a mortal creature. This took place during a
Christian Science lecture when I was a very new student. Allow me to
share with you the story which first brought immortality to light in my
experience. The story is told of a young Prince who when a very small
child became separated from his nurse and wandered into some woods where
roamed a Gypsy band. The Gypsies carried him away with them and brought
him up as one of their own. Living in the great outdoors with his
captors, before many years, he became nearly as swarthy and brown as the
Gypsies. He wore Gypsy clothes, spoke the Gypsy tongue and was given a
Gypsy name To all intensive purposes he was a Gypsy. He certainly looked
like one and thought he was one. When he arrived at manhoods estate, the
Gypsy band again roamed the woods near the palace. A dear friend of the
King who had never ceased seeking for the Prince, saw him. He was struck
by the youths strong resemblance of the King and in spite of the Gypsy
appearance the old Courtier was immediately convinced that there was the
King’s son. Knowing some of the Gypsy tongue he said to the young man,
“Do you know who you are?” The other regarded him with a puzzled look,
“Do I know who I am” he answered. “Of course I do” and he gave a Gypsy
name. Ah, said the friend, but that is not your real name for the truth
about you is that you are the son of the King. The young man shook his
head, “You are mistaken” said he, “I am not the King’s son, I am a
Gypsy.” “I know that you seem to be” said the friend, “but the fact is
that you are not, you are really the son of the King.” “If what you say
is true” said the other, there must be two of me, this Gypsy here and
the son of the King. I don’t know where the son of the King is”. No,
persisted the friend. There is only one of you and I’m telling you about
that one. That one is the son of the King. Then said the young man, (and
he confidently expected the discussion would settle the maUer) “If I
really am the son of the King, where did the Gypsy come from?” The
friend replied that there really was no Gypsy, there only appeared to
be. He further explained that all the evidence that the young man was a
Gypsy was a lie about him and could never change the fact that he was
truly the son of the King. In fact the only place the Gypsy seemed to
exist was in his ignorance, his misconception, as to his origin; for all
the time he had been the son of the King.
At this point the lecturer
rejoiced, “Isn’t it wonderful that all the time this boy never really
was a Gypsy but was always the son of the King.” He emphasized that
regardless of all the lying, material sense testimony, the speech, the
clothes, marmerisms, swarthy complexion and so on the boy was not a
Gypsy but actually the King’s son. And he pointed to the audience and
said, “You, too, are the
sons and daughters of the King. You are
the children of God. It makes no
difference’ that lying, material sense piles up the evidence that you
are a mortal, material
creature, a child of material parents with aches and pains, lack and
limitation. You are really
the immortal children of God and that is what you have been all the
time.” But it wasn’t enough for the old Courtier just to convince the
boy that he was the King’s son, the young man had to go with his friend
to the King himself, identif5,’ himself and claim his heritage. The
Prince did so. Thi~ time he did not say, “I look like a Gypsy” rather he
said, “Look at my strong resemblence to the King, I am the image and
likeness of my Father, I am the King’s son and all that my Father has is
mine.” Of course the Prince was recognized as the true son and heir and
he came into his inheritance.
The lecturer pointed out that we,
too, must come boldly to the throne of grace. Identify ourselves as the
children of God, His exact image and likeness and claim our inheritance.
Claim health, success, happines_ employment and as we steadfastly
maintain our true identity and claim our
heritage we too come into our
inheritance of all that is wonderful and good--”
And that chart in front of
you, showing Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love,
operating as the WORD, the CHRIST, CHRISTIANITY and SCIENCE on all
levels of experience, is you, the idea of God, the only man there is.
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