I have been a student of Christian Science for about four years, and those four years of study have given me an understanding of God, and my relation to Him and to my fellow-man, which has wrought nothing less than a complete regeneration in me, of which all the preceding years had never given me so much as an inkling. Physically the understanding of Science has healed me of life-long chronic catarrh, of a very distressing form of acute dyspepsia, of which I had been a victim for many years, finding no relief from severe attacks except in the use of morphine; of a functional derangement which caused much suffering at times, and which the surgeon's knife and years of medical treatment had alike proved ineffectual in correcting; of chronic and constitutional throat trouble, and tendency to severe and protracted colds; and (what is to me perhaps the greatest bodily relief of all) of the chronic lassitude or weakness which made my existence and its duties a burden. Until three years ago I scarcely knew what it was not to be so tired that the most trivial daily task was accomplished only by a great effort, whereas it is now more than two years since I have been conscious of even one moment's weariness, although they have been two of the busiest years of my life, including several periods of unusual physical exertion.
The same understanding has also freed me in great measure from the sins of self-will, jealousy, and morbid self-consciousness, and has taught me to be more grateful, more loving, and more forgiving. It has established in me a better sense of all human relationship, and has brought about a reconciliation between a member of my immediate family and myself, in place of a very bitter estrangement which had existed for many years. I know that this was the result of, or answer to, Christian Science prayer, because the initiative which led to it came from me; and I know that, lacking the point of view of Christian Science, and ignorant of its precepts, such a step would have been quite impossible to me.
When I first began to have a little comprehension of this Science, another young student asked me what particular phase of its teachings appealed to me especially, and my answer was, "The assurance that, whatever else is wrong, God is right and that it is my privilege to know Him;" and if I were asked the same question to-day, the same answer would apply. Before learning of God in Christian Science, I was without hope and without God in the world, and while to-day I find my greatest comfort and surest refuge in the consciousness of God as Love, I first learned to love Him as Principle. I had heard God defined as Love before, yet all the creeds and doctrines held out to me were inconsistent with and contradictory to this definition—even from the standpoint of our poor mortal sense of love; so I had to learn what love really is before I could appreciate the application of the word as John uses it. I had attended, at various times, the churches of different denominations, and read many books on theology and philosophy; but until I read Science and Health I never thought of God as a Being whom I could spontaneously and unreservedly worship— not through fear, or in blind faith, or with any ulterior purpose of bargaining my way into heaven, but simply through recognition of Him as absolutely good, unswervingly right, and unchangeably loving—as a positive and universal Principle of good, by which not only creed and conduct could and must be regulated, but every most secret thought of the heart as well. It had seemed to me, even before I heard of Christian Science, that the misery of the world, the dis-eased condition of religion, of society, of business, of politics, and of the human affections, were directly traceable to the world-old lack of a unit, a common standard of ethics and morals, which could be applied impartially to all the affairs of men, and by which they could be governed. I know now that there is, and always has been, such a ruling Principle, transcending all the ideals which I or any one else ever entertained in our most Utopian dreams, which needs only to be understood and this understanding intelligently applied, to bring order out of chaos, replace despair with an assured hope, and overcome all evil with good. Because of its very perfection, my own effort to come into harmony with and be governed by this all-embracing divine Principle has cost bitter suffering to "the old man;" but just in proportion as I am able to discern and ready to obey the supreme law of Life, I find that, although inexorable in its requirements, it is still the law of Love, and that it heals the wounds it seems to inflict upon the self-love of mortals by displacing the old false sense of self with the spiritual consciousness of man as made in the image of God and reflecting His perfection.
