For the benefit of those who are not very familiar with Science, I will tell of a demonstration I had last summer while playing tennis. In running to return a ball, I fell violently, turning my ankle so that it was very badly hurt. One of the ladies watching the game kindly took my racket and I sat with the others until the game was finished, all the time trying to declare the Truth. After the game we went into the library, and while there some one asked me if I did not intend to put some liniment on my ankle, and I replied that I would use Christian Science and would need no other remedy. When I could withdraw from the party without too much notice, I did so, going at once to my room. During the night I wakened in very great pain, and as the lady whose room was next mine was also a Scientist, I managed finally to get to her door and asked her to treat me, as the pain was so real that I could do little for myself. I went back to bed and to sleep, waking about half past seven the next morning. She came into my room while I dressed, and at first we both thought I would have to use a cane to walk. However, when I was ready to go down stairs, I went without the cane, and by noon that day the pain was gone and I walked without any limp whatever, though the ankle was badly discolored and somewhat swollen for some time, and it was not until last winter that it felt perfectly natural. One day while talking with some friends I put my foot out in front of me and felt a little bone slip into place, making a snap that we all heard; since then my ankle has been just the same size as the other, though it never hurt me after the demonstration made at the time of spraining it.
Though I had been in Science for quite a while, and had used it to help myself, I had always felt a little backward about trying to help others, not that I doubted it, but I did doubt my ability to demonstrate it. One day, when there seemed to be the claim of grip on every side, a friend came to me and asked me to help her, and I said I would do the best I could; so I went to my room and treated her, she going on with her usual work, trying to help herself all she could. I treated her again that night before going to bed, and the next morning she told me she had gone to sleep with the feeling of perfect peace, and felt well that day, the claim having been broken. Her voice cleared up in a day or two.
This experience made me feel anxious to know more about the Truth and bring out such love and beauty in my own life that every one would see that Christian Science was the Truth, and desire to know about it and live it.
