When Christian Science came to me I stood in deeper need of it than I realized. As a boy I was brought up in the arms of the church, and took a strong interest in religious questions; but this interest lay chiefly in the direction of how to avoid eternal punishment. Condemnation and burning appeared so inevitable a result of "idle words," that there seemed to be little hope of escape except through being fortunate enough to die at some propitious moment when less black marks than usual were being earned.
School life, which commenced in 1863, changed all this, and from that date till the close of 1881 all questions of religion were thrust into the background as far as possible. Early in 1882, however, a strong desire came to search the Scriptures to see if they did not contain a more hopeful message than had yet come to me. I was serving in South Africa at the time, and the sudden change of interests, and consequent earnest study of the Bible which ensued, caused much amusement to my brother officers, and led to a good deal of friendly banter on their part.
I did not get any real satisfaction through my system of reading the Bible, nor from much study of the theological works of the day. I had been in the habit of going to church, as a duty, with tolerable regularity; but in 1896 I realized that there could not be much advantage in worshipping under a kind of compulsion, and I decided to study for myself, and conduct a periodical self-examination.
