"And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." It is nearly four years since I definitely gave up all material remedies, and have never once thought of going back to them. At that time I was in bed with an attack of bronchitis, the third or fourth that season, and I had also suffered that winter from diphtheria, inflammatory rheumatism, earache, which left me quite deaf for weeks, and laryngitis. These, one after the other, kept me in bed for three months, and most of the time for two months more. For years I had been under the belief of a weak heart, and when my good doctor told me one morning, "I can give you no hope of ever being well, but can try to keep you patched up comfortably for a few years," I said, "Then I shall try Christian Science."
I had known of Christian Science in a vague way for a few years because of friends who were interested, and for more than a year had been reading Science and Health and the Journal to my mother, but without the least understanding and without a great deal of interest in the subject. It was all so strange to me that I sometimes asked if I read intelligently, for I could make no clear sense of the sentences. Little as I realized it the soil was being prepared, and when I saw my need I turned to Science with no misgivings and found my blessing.
In a few days I was dressed and walking about upstairs; it was a week or two before I ventured to go downstairs—that old belief of heart held me back. Gradually I learned that a heart is of no more consequence to the life of man than a toe is, and as the fear vanished strength came, and for more than three years I have been free of that ''ball and chain." Another complete healing is that of a varicose vein that it had been necessary to bandage daily for about fifteen years, and from which I suffered intensely at times.
