Words cannot express my gratitude to God for Christian Science. I am trying to live a life of love daily, so that I may thus acknowledge the great debt I owe to God. I was healed of a number of so-called incurable diseases, by simply reading "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. One disease was called consumption. My mother died with it very soon after I was born, so I was supposed to have inherited it, at least I was taught to believe so. During my childhood, I was very bitter, because of constant colds and coughs,—thinking that God intended to punish me finally with lingering consumption. My aunt, who raised me, went through a siege of lingering consumption for many years, and the mental picture was ever before me during childhood. I resented with all my strength of resistance the thought that I had to have consumption, or any sin or disease, because of my parents. I even refused to repeat the Lord's Prayer, because it declared, "Thy will be done." My heart refused what I then understood was "His will." As time passed I grew more bitter, more unhappy. I could not understand how any sensible person could accept the teachings of any of the orthodox churches. No minister could ever explain the Scriptures to my satisfaction. I was constantly yearning for something, I knew not what, but I could see no one who was satisfied or happy. The whole world seemed to be wrong.
When I first read Science and Health, I had tried every remedy I had ever heard of. I felt no change in mind or body that I was conscious of until I read page 16 of the chapter on "Prayer," in Science and Health. The first words of the "spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer," telling of our Father-Mother God, gave me a glimpse of heavenly light. I stopped and reasoned, and remembered the teachings of Jesus. The truth of man's spiritual being dawned on my consciousness. I realized I was not subject to mortal laws, as I had been taught all my life. I could not explain how I knew this, but I knew it. Through Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy had given me what I had longed for all my life,—a Mother, a perfect "Father-Mother God." I had known there was a great lack, and at that time I believed the orthodox world had but half of the truth which Jesus came to establish. When I read, "Give us this day our daily bread," and its spiritual interpretation, my tears began to flow; all the years of bitterness, hate, and fear melted away. I knew then, as I know now, that nothing satisfies but Love. That day began the outward and inward conscious healing,—mental and physical. There never came a doubt! I absolutely knew that Christian Science was and is the truth. Money, friends, materiality, are nothing beside the conscious knowledge of God, man, and the universe.
I did not need treatment from any one,—Science and Health was so clear and beautiful. I could not understand the Bible before, but I found it illumined now that I had the understanding of Christian Science. I saw that in belief there were two powers, and in reality but one,—God. Daily I learned to separate these opposites. I had struggles; many mental battles were fought, but the light always dispels the darkness and teaches us its nothingness. My healing was slow. I improved in body as I improved in mind. I learned to forget my body by watching that error did not creep into my consciousness, and the body became a mirror, a reflector of divine Mind.
