It is nearly four years since I was first helped by Christian Science, which, though it has made a new man of me, has not as yet enabled me to wield my pen sufficiently well to convey to others my gratitude for what it has done for me physically, mentally, and morally.
I wore a truss for a double rupture for twenty years, and for fifteen years I was afflicted with nervous prostration, constipation, and dyspepsia. These conditions grew worse as years went on, and the last five years was a spell of misery which only those similarly tormented can understand. Rennet custard was my chief diet, and for a time I lived solely on bran moistened with milk. Even these caused great distress. I tried eating and I tried not eating—medicine and no medicine. I started in with the doctors and left them after receiving no relief, and tried baths, massage, electricity, and every cure suggested, including everything in the realm of patent medicines. I finally turned again to the doctors who interested themselves in my condition, and earnestly tried to give me their help. For a time every new treatment seemed to help me, but in the end left me worse until I was finally reduced to one hundred and twenty-six pounds. During the last three years the constipation practically resulted in paralysis of the bowels, and it was only when medicines ceased to act that I was induced to try Christian Science, which I grasped at as a drowning man at a straw, little thinking that that straw would prove to be the staff of Life. I had warned others against Christian Science as emanating from the devil, not then realizing that Christ, who came to destroy the works of the devil, cast out these same diseases and never once referred to them as the works of God, but always as the works of the devil.
At this time I was greatly troubled with my eyes, and a prominent oculist, recommended by my physician, pronounced my trouble astigmatism, for which I would always have to wear glasses, in the street as well as to read with. The first Christian Science treatment cured the bowel trouble and greatly relieved the dyspepsia, which was fully cured, as was also the astigmatism, in two or three weeks. Shortly after the nervous prostration was routed, and a year later I weighed one hundred and seventy-five pounds and was in perfect health.
