Letters & Conversations

Never was fly, tangled up in a spider's web, more helpless or hopeless than our family when Christian Science was brought to our notice in such a way that we grasped the thought as a drowning man would a straw. While not a sick child, I cannot remember ever being really well, though pride, ambition, and a strong will kept me up till nearly through my school days, at about seventeen years old, when I collapsed completely.

To the Editor. Dear Brother: —The enclosed is a "True story in seven chapters," the matter refers to the healing of Mrs.

Our beloved Leader, the Rev. Mary Baker G.

I have been delicate all my life, four times have been given up by the doctors. I was pronounced consumptive and had heart trouble and eczema from birth; the latter made me quite blind for a long time when a child.

I first heard of Christian Science about three years ago, through the marvelous—as it appeared to me— healing of a claim of rheumatism in the mother of a friend of mine. Being the mother of four children, girls nine and six years old, and a pair of twins—boy and girl —three years old, I was naturally interested on their account, especially as our family had had some experience with illnesses and accidents, and with physicians and drugs.

Until I heard of Christian Science, fourteen years ago, I had never known what it was to be free from pain. My diseases were numerous and my suffering at times intense, so that I would be confined to my bed for months at a time.

When a small child I used to go into a dark closet and pray. I attended revivals, hoping to attain the change of heart they talked of; I have gone forward and given my hand to the minister, asking for the prayers of the church, but I was not satisfied.

I will say that before coming into the understanding of Science, I was not whole in any part. I had toothache almost continuously from my childhood; spells of neuralgia lasting a week or two, about every three or four months, for many years; dyspepsia that seemed to impede the action of the heart, causing excruciating pains, but the worst of all was the belief of kidney complaint, running for a period of twenty-five years, until it had reached Bright s disease in its most aggravated stage.

I was raised by as good a Christian mother as a boy ever had. I was taught to believe the Bible fully, and did believe it, in my limited understanding of it, until I found myself drifting about the world and coming in contact with many representatives of different religious sects.

Through Christian Science God has bestowed great blessings upon me. I had suffered for many years, and in January, 1896, I went to a surgeon who, after an examination, told me that my only help was an immediate operation.