I First heard of Christian Science in November of 1890, and in the following January the "pearl of great price," "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy, in its revised form, was shown to me. The previous winter I had spent five months in the house, three of them confined to my bed, a victim of the grip; my physician had told me that I would have to take quinine for a year or more, and that I would have to be very careful of myself. I did not take the quinine, but I did take the fear in a certain degree until I heard of Christian Science; then I wanted the book, but I did not have three dollars that I could spare for it, so I went home determined to sell something out of the house so that I could buy it. As I began looking over my household effects, my eyes lit upon some books that I had bought the year before, when I had more money; they were standard works, such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Moore, etc. Counting the cost I found that I had paid thirty-five dollars for the lot; then I gathered up a quantity of other books that I did not need, and sent for a dealer in second-hand books to come up and buy the lot, telling my wife that he would probably offer her eight or ten dollars for them, but for them, but for her to sell them at any price, getting of course the best that she could. The next day he came for the books, and after looking them over he offered two dollars and fifty cents for the lot. My wife said that would not do, as I wanted to buy another book. He asked what book and the price. At that time he had not heard of the book, but gave my wife the price. three dollars, and with it I bought Science and Health. Since then I have bought several other copies, but none do I value so highly as my first three-dollar copy, and I would not sell it to-day for its first cost to me, namely, thirty-five dollars, for through the reading of that book I was healed of a rupture of nine years' standing, also of severe sick-headaches, but the best part of it is, that I have been brought into a knowledge of God that I never had before. So to me it has been the "pearl of great price," for I sold my other books for this one, and with this one I have been able to do some of the works that our Master said we could do if we understood.
So let us build our lives aright,
With stones of beauty and of Truth;
