The sense of love and joy that came to me as I caught the first ray of light through Christian Science will never be forgotten. It came while I was reading Science and Health. My trade is blacksmithing and shoeing, and while at work one day, it seemed as if something gave way in the small of my back. I started for home and could hardly walk to the house,—a distance of about two hundred feet. I lay down on the couch in great suffering. In a few minutes a friend gave me Science and Health to read, and as I read a very helpful passage, I at last declared that it must be true, and then I began to think I had better get up. I did so, but with great fear of bending my back. I went to the shop, and began to feel much better, but was very careful not to bend my back. All at once I bent over, and to my surprise there was no pain. I went at the work, started the shoeing, and my back had never before felt so strong. This was about a year and a half ago, and it has remained well. Another time I went to a fire and got pretty wet. The next night I woke up with great pain in my chest and a bad cough. My wife got up and tried to help me. She got a mustard plaster, but I refused it; then she was going to have a doctor, but still I refused; and how I suffered till morning! Then my friend came in and gave me Science and Health again. I tried and tried to read, and could not see a word, but I kept on trying. At last I read a few lines and then I went to sleep for a little while. This trouble was called pneumonia. By eleven o'clock I got up and went to the shop, and after a little while I went up to the Christian Science reading room and had a talk with a practitioner, then went back to the shop and took up my work. I was healed. I have also been helped from the smoking and drinking habits, and in many other ways.
One day I went out on the river in a boat, and in some way or other I made a misstep and fell out in deep and swiftly running water. When I came up I tried hard to reach the boat but could not, and felt that I would go down, when all at once it came to me that God is All in all, and I felt like a new man. I got to the boat, and then to shore, and went quite a way down the river to get my hat. Without an understanding of divine Love I would have gone down.
Christian Science has helped my family in many ways. Some little time after I began to study Science and Health, our little boy, about three years old, seemed to have a bad cough. He would keep his mother awake all night, and so I began to declare the truth and to realize that he was God's child and that the cough was unreal. I was sure that he would be healed, and he was; he has not coughed any since.
