Many years ago, while visiting an old schoolmate on a sugar plantation in Louisiana, I found among the books of her library some magazines which were of much interest to me. They had come from the far North. They contained a conglomeration of metaphysics, and also paragraphs containing touches of truth and promise such as Jesus gives. I loved to hunt through and find these. At the close of my visit I took them to Florida, and now and then during the winter would read from them, but with a puzzled feeling. I had always prayed regarding the most important matters, but I had an undefined fear regarding prayer for temporal matters. I had, however, studied and prayed for years over Jesus' teachings, and longed for a more practical understanding of healing. I became keenly critical of any religious writings, and carefully compared them with the New Testament.
On returning to Missouri the following spring my health constantly grew worse, and discouragement and longing for death were my constant companions, although I kept up a cheerful exterior. If death were the door to heaven, I wanted to go, as I was becoming unfit for service here. After eighteen months, a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" was handed to me, and on reading it, I discovered that it contained all the good I had found in Jesus' teachings, and the way by which they could be applied. I also found that the good which had attracted me in those magazines was taken from this book.
How I studied and prayed over that book! I was very solicitous that I should not be benefited by anything less than the true Christian healing, which would bring me a new sense of life, as the old sense was nothing to be desired. It was my custom, when reading religious books, to pray that I might receive the good and reject the wrong. At last, on Christmas day, with a prayer in my heart for more understanding of the Christ birth, I kept to myself all day, studying the Bible and Science and Health, and there came to me a sense of a holy presence which showed me that God is here and not to be found simply by dying. I forgot to go to a Christmas dinner. I struggled on with the book, praying and trusting with increasing peace, until the truth dawned, and I saw that there is one Life, one substance, and understood at last how Jesus did his healing. During the next few weeks my physical troubles passed away. I treated my sister, who was in a very critical condition, and in five or six days she also was healed. The very atmosphere, which had seemed heavy and dark with suffering and wrong, grew bright and benedictive to my sense. As I was carried on further in the understanding of Christian Science, the earth seemed transformed; I was lifted above and beyond materiality to the understanding of Principle, and a moment with the Lord seemed as "a thousand years."
