Last summer a clergyman came to ask me about Christian Science. Through reading criticisms and articles based on false conceptions of this subject, he had begun to have a wrong sense of Mrs. Eddy and of the way in which true Christian Scientists regard her. To correct his mistaken opinions I told him a little of my own experience which seemed so helpful in destroying the false notions he had entertained that I would gladly relate it for others, hoping that through it some one may gain a clearer view of the Founder of this mighty movement.
Long before seeing Mrs. Eddy I often wondered how I should feel to be near her or to hear her speak, and then my thought would turn to the eminent clergymen, statesmen, philosophers, and philanthropic workers for whom I had most admiration, and from whose sermons, lectures, and lessons I had turned with a great sense of the charming or magnetic personality of the man or woman to whom I had listened. This sense I expected to have on seeing the author of Science and Health, only in a far greater degree, since to me she had become, through her writings, the most wonderful woman in the world.
On that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, May 26, 1895, I first saw our dear Leader and heard her speak. Words cannot express the spiritual uplift this brought. I saw for the first time the beauty of humility. The sense of personality vanished, and instead of dwelling in thought on Mrs. Eddy, I could only think, "How good God is! what a noble cause! and how I long for more purity and consecration to this work of uplifting the world."
