At times Christian Scientists are tempted to admit a sense of discouragement if in doing their work they do not immediately see its fruits, and to such I should like to give my testimony.
Some seventeen years ago there was a member of my immediate family who had been very ill many months, during which time she had tried everything in the way of climate, physicians, etc., that money could procure, but with no result. While away in Florida seeking for health, she met a lady who seemed to be in a condition almost precisely the same as her own. After many meetings and talks together, they parted to return home. As they lived in the same city, they met again in a few weeks, but the friend was well, instead of being an invalid as she had been when she left the south, and she was happy in telling that Christian Science had healed her. This so impressed my relative that without the knowledge of any member of her family she went to a Christian Science practitioner. Three days afterwards she walked into my home perfectly healed, and upon being questioned she said Christian Science had wrought the change. This to me seemed a miracle at the time, but it found me perfectly satisfied with the world and the things in it, and that thought, it seems to me, is difficult to change to one that wants God. It was not long after this that a child came to our family, then another, and with them seemed to come the usual beliefs in children's ailments. Occasionally, for these and for little troubles for myself, I would turn to Science and have treatment; but always with the thought that unless the relief were immediate I would return to medicine. Sometimes the relief came; at other times, when the practitioner arrived she would be told I had had a physician and would no longer require her services. I well remember with what love and patience she met this.
This turning to God and then away continued for years, until I began to see there was something in Christian Science which I wanted as my own; but there were two things I did not wish to give up, as I knew I must should I accept the teachings of absolute Christian Science.
