The physical healing in my immediate family has been very wonderful, but far more marvelous is the spiritual regeneration. During my childhood I attended the Congregational Church with my parents, who were members of that denomination. Many of my dearest friends, however, were Episcopalians, and I frequently went to church with them. I learned to love the Episcopal service, and when old enough to decide for myself, I determined to become a member of the Episcopal Church, if I could gain my parents' consent. This was finally granted, and I was confirmed shortly after my sixteenth birthday.
For a few years I was perfectly content with my chosen faith; but as time went on I became gradually impressed with a growing sense of lack and unsatisfied longing. The next few years seem an utter blank, so far as any religious growth is concerned, and I drifted into a state of apathy and indifference, dangerously near one of absolute unbelief.
I spent nearly two years of my school life in a convent, but Catholicism never appealed to me in the slightest degree.
I had been an invalid for years; and at times a very great sufferer; but when, in 1887, Christian Science was first brought to my notice through what then seemed the miraculous healing of a near relative, I positively declined to consider it for myself, and continued to suffer for five more weary years.
In September, 1892, I was suddenly and effectually aroused through the illness of a little daughter. She was then five months old, and had known scarcely a moment's freedom from pain from the day of her birth. We had employed every means known to materia medica, without avail, and not until the physicians had pronounced it a hopeless case, did I remember Christian Science. In sheer desperation and agony of mind, I at last turned to God; in densest ignorance of what it meant, but with a great hope, and a willingness to be led, born of utter despair. How true it is, that "man's extremity is God's opportunity!"
We called a Scientist, and the healing was instantaneous. Through that first treatment I was myself healed of a disease of which the Scientist knew nothing and which had obstinately refused to yield to any other means for more than fifteen years. Withing a very short time, an older daughter was healed of inherited throat and lung trouble, which our physician had pronounced incurable.
My own healing was slow, except in the disease referred to, and it was one whole year before I could call myself a well woman. But I was never for an instant discouraged or disheartened, for I had been convinced of the omnipotence of God, and what mattered one short year, when up to that moment I had had nothing to look forward to but a life a suffering.
I had turned to Christian Science for the physical healing only, but the first treatment brought such a spiritual awakening that I almost lost sight of the physical. Science and Health became my constant companion, and through its blessed interpretations, the Bible is a new book, unfolding constantly to my understanding.
During the last eight years I have had daily—yes, hourly—proofs of God's omnipotent and omnipresent care, in the healing of every phase of disease, and sin.
Chicago, Ill.
