"Catch the vision that wrote the book," Christian Scientists in the early days sometimes said to those who were just beginning to study Science and Health.
It was plain to these Christian Scientists that a tremendous new understanding of reality had brought the book into being. Through reading it they, too, were catching a glimpse of this reality. So assuring, self-evident, and powerful was this new view of life that it seemed perfectly natural for sickness of many years' duration and even the shadow of death to melt away as part of some previous ignorance.
While many of those reading Science and Health had believed in God in a nominal way, their study of Christian Science showed them an entirely new dimension to religion. One woman wrote that although she believed God existed, He seemed to have no connection with her present life. As she read Science and Health she began to see she must get the right understanding of God. "I closed the book and with head bowed in prayer I waited with longing intensity for some answer," she wrote. "How long I waited I do not know, but suddenly, like a wonderful burst of sunlight after a storm, came clearly this thought, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' I held my breath—deep into my hungering thought sank the infinite meaning of that 'I.' All self-conceit, egotism, selfishness, everything that constitutes the mortal 'I,' sank abashed out of sight. . . . Words are inadequate to convey the fulness of that spiritual uplifting, but others who have had similar experiences will understand." Science and Health, p. 669;
