When I was child seven years old a most serious attack of fever was followed by a supposedly contagious disease, and this by a condition of the entire body so serious that for many months I was helpless. From this I so far recovered as to be able to attend school for several years, but was sickly and suffering most of the time. At thirteen I was threatened with total blindness, owing to conditions which two eye specialists pronounced incurable. The ten years following were, waking and sleeping, nightmares of suffering, and every organ of the body gradually became implicated in the general break-down. While a resident of Spokane, Wash., in 1894, a severe attack of illness resulted in heart failure and other distressing conditions.
I had been raised a devout member of an orthodox church, but when my prayers to live, in order to raise two small daughters, were seemingly unanswered, and I continued to grow steadily worse, I became rebellious toward a God who could be cruel enough to take a mother away from helpless little children and said there either was no God or the Bible was wrong in defining God as Love. Into these darkened chambers of thought there came no ray of light. The most unselfish attendance and effort of both physician and clergyman brought no surcease from the bodily and mental anguish, and at last the physician pronounced my case beyond medical science to heal. The efforts of the clergyman were redoubled to bring about a reconciliation with God before death should claim me. Two other physicians were called in, who gave the same verdict of incurable. I was then taken East to consult specialists, but in every place the verdict was practically the same,—"It is only a question of time." I grew steadily worse, and the last year I would not see the minister, whose only plea was that I should become reconciled to God's will. So aggravated had become the symptoms that I was never left alone for fear death would come while I was unattended.
An old friend had become interested in Christian Science and often, during those three gloomy years of suffering, she tried to interest me in it, but in one of our first talks on the subject she presented it so unwisely that I rebelled at everything classed under the head of Christian Science and inwardly fumed every time the subject was mentioned. About the first of May, 1897, a more serious attack left me absolutely despairing, and then this true thought of Christian Science reached me through the same dear friend,—"The trouble is, you are not yet ready to say, 'I can of mine own self do nothing.' "
