When a girl of sixteen I had an attack of spinal meningitis that laid the foundation for years of invalidism, although I never gave up completely to it until after I was married.
The sudden death of my mother, who had been all the world to me, followed by the birth of my little daughter, seemed the beginning of seven long years of suffering, physical and mental. The latter was caused by a constantly growing rebellion against a God who could take my mother from me, and could permit such suffering— which finally ended in my refusing to believe in the existence of a God.
For weeks I would be compelled to lie in a hammock, for I could neither sit in a chair nor lie in bed without intense pain from sciatica. Meanwhile my spinal trouble continued to grow worse, in spite of the suffering caused by physicians applying constant irritants, and with the general breaking down came troubles too numerous to mention.
