In reading one of the editorials in the March Journal I found a statement which took me back in thought to an experience of several years ago. The statement was this: "Like the little child in the unconsciousness of its sore distress, they have called for one who bore them in his arms. ... From the slums, the sweat-shop, the sickroom, ay, and from the haunt of the outcast and degraded, the heart of sin-sick humanity is crying, My God, O my God!"
When taken with the illness of which I was afterward healed by Christian Science, I was visiting in England. The physicians there advised my return to America as soon as possible. On the homeward voyage I was under the care of the ship surgeon, who ordered me to remain in my berth for three days at least. It was of these days I was reminded by the words quoted above, for during that time I recall saying almost constantly, "My Father, O my Father," and as I had been for years very skeptical, and was at this time an agnostic, the question came, Who is your Father? and why do you call upon one of whom you know nothing (nor can)? If there were a God—a just God—would He let you suffer like this? My answer was, No, I do not know who or what God is—and cannot know—but I believe there is a God, and if a God, He must be wise and just, and I cannot believe He is responsible for my sufferings. I must be responsible, I must have transgressed nature's laws, and must pay the consequent penalty. Of course these "laws of nature" were to my mind "health laws," in which I fully believed and which I supposed were God's laws. In fact, nature and God were nearly synonymous terms to me, and so I worshipfully loved the springtime, the flowers, the trees, the wonderful sky, the stars, and all the beauties of nature.
Upon my arrival in New York I consulted different physicians and finally went to a well-known specialist who told me that my troubles were of an organic nature and chronic, and that an operation would be necessary, but that I must take a course of treatment to "tone up my system" before the operation could be performed with any safety.
