I Very well remember the first time that I really listened when someone presented Christian Science to me. I had suffered at intervals for nearly twenty years from the effects of a fall on the ice while I was snowshoeing. The last four years of the period (1920-1924) were filled with mental and physical suffering, including one year on crutches and the need to take a taxi daily to the school where I was teaching. The various physicians who treated me classified my knee trouble as arthritis, tubercular arthritis, inflammation of the patella, and so forth. Then they began to wander further afield, and to treat me for such things as spinal trouble, colonic inflammation and stoppage, infected teeth, and infected tonsils. One physician suggested that my eyes might be the cause of the trouble. Then, when the way seemed very black indeed, and I had sustained another fall; when financial burdens oppressed me, and I had an aged relative depending on me for support, I remembered what a friend had said about Christian Science. Since ten or twelve physicians had failed to bring me more than temporary relief, and since the periods of disability were growing longer and more frequent, I decided that Christian Science could not do worse for me, and I went to a practitioner.
So little did I expect relief for my knee that I did not mention it at first, but for weeks poured out my financial and domestic troubles. I can never be grateful enough for the love and patience with which the practitioner listened to me, and gradually brought me to the point where I was willing to read and study.
About six months later, I fell again, and was in a great panic. My family besought me to return to the surgeon who had last treated me. Finally, I promised that I would if I were not better over the week end. I feared to use the home telephone, and painfully forced my way to the corner drug store. I told the practitioner, by telephone, what was threatening me, and begged for help. She assured me that the help was at hand, and I returned home much comforted. Nothing more was said by my family, for there was nothing more to talk about. It was one of the most beautiful and potent healings I have ever experienced.
