My Dear Mrs. F.:— I am indebted to you beyond measure for having been the first person who brought to my notice the teachings of Christian Science. You are fully aware how I treated the subject when you announced to me that you were one of that sect, and endeavored furthermore to impress upon me the great advantages to be derived by becoming a member of a society of human beings aggregating but a handful of people as against the combined population of this terrestrial orb, who appeared to me to be commencing a struggle for supremacy to which the battle between David and Goliath is but an inadequate comparison.
You well remember how I looked at you with amazement, not to say pity, when you rehearsed to me (as I thought at the time) a number of Scriptural sayings, which sounded like so much twaddle; in fact, they had, to my worldly comprehension, the ring of what are commonly termed hallucinations, and closely resembled the symptoms of incipient insanity. I felt at times, while you spoke, a sense of lassitude and boredom, and innate politeness alone deterred me from ridiculing your sincere admonitions and counsels.
The repeated efforts on your part to make me accept from you a copy of the Christian Science text-book to read, and my repeated refusals, originated in the mundane illusions I possessed at the time in combination with a fixed and hardened opinion I had formed on all matters appertaining to religion. This opinion was based on the amount of literature I had already ransacked on the subject, in which I had found nothing but emptiness, superstition, bigotry, and a cloak, as I was fully convinced, for all that was sordid, mean, and contemptible. In fact, I had ostracized myself completely from all beliefs, creeds, and isms that had been ventilated, were in process of ventilation, or to be ventilated. In a word, I hated the name of religion, and when you so kindly and generously offered to give me your experience, it irritated me, and only brought more vividly to my mind the thousand-and-one disappointments I had met with in the search for that Truth which had so baffled me all through life. I have always admired persistence, however, and your indefatigable zeal impressed me, and I finally accepted, unconsciously, I may say. the great boon you were bestowing upon me. and fully made up my mind to read the little book.
