The healing of my sister first brought Christian Science to my notice in 1889, and it seemed very remarkable to me, since she had tried all sorts of doctors, many of them specialists, only to be told she might be temporarily relieved, but never could be well. I regarded it only as a means of healing sickness, so gave it little thought, as being something I did not need to investigate.
About this time our church was beginning to have revivals and "holiness meetings," and the doctrine of sanctification as taught by those holding the meetings seemed to me to be all that one needed, so I sought with great earnestness the "cleansing from all sin," and received a blessing in April, 1888, that those in the experience said was sanctification.
After two years' studying and trying to practise the doctrine "as taught by John Wesley and the Bible," I found that the sins we are told so many times to lay aside, and which the "Second Blessing" theory says are all instantaneously destroyed, were not gotten rid of, but were all the more tormenting, because of my desire to be free from sin. And yet I did not grasp the thought that Christian Science gave the key to the problem, and so I wandered out into the wilderness of uncertainty and unbelief.
