In August, 1902, a friend lent me a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, remarking that it was the text-book of Christian Scientists, who deny the reality of evil and who claim that healing is being done to-day as Jesus did it. I gladly took the book, with the intention of detecting its fallacies and upsetting its conclusions. I was on a holiday at the time, and for a fortnight did little else but study it. Instead of my upsetting its conclusions, I found that it was upsetting my preconceptions of its character and purpose. It claimed to be Scriptural and based on Jesus' ministry. I determined to see what grounds there were in Scripture for the Christian Science position. The result was astonishing to my sense; I was compelled to admit that if the Bible were true, then Christian Science was the truth, for the Scriptural evidence was remarkably strong. At this point I met these words. "You can prove for yourself, dear reader, the Science of healing, and so ascertain if the author has given you the correct interpretation of Scripture" (Science and Health, p. 547). This was straightforward, logical, and fair, and I determined from then to put the book to the practical test. I was wearing glasses and had been told by a London oculist that unless I wore them constantly I should lose my sight altogether in about four years. When I read the words quoted above, I laid aside my glasses, and though I read till nearly midnight, I was entirely free from any inconvenience. My slight understanding of Truth had overcome the discordant conditions. I continued my daily study without my glasses, and from that day to this I have never again had need to use them, and have been free from pain. This demonstration was but the first of many, and proved to my thought that I had at last met with that which I had been seeking for years, — demonstrable truth. Material science had condemned me to blindness — but to-day my sight is better than ever and I am happy in the knowledge that "God never ordained a material law to annul the spiritual law" (Science and Health, p. 273). The truth has indeed made me free. It has freed me from the tobacco habit, from toothache, and from the anxieties and worries which used to paralyze the energies. I have proved, and am proving daily, that God is indeed a very present help in time of trouble. It was some time before I gave up my beloved orthodox church, but I found that it could not give me what Science had given me and I had to leave. The physical healing is but the advance scout announcing the presence of Truth, and is not nearly so wonderful as the spiritual illumination—the understanding of God—which follows upon it, the knowledge of Immanuel,—"God with us."
Through the understanding of the truth, as given in the Christian Science text-book, I have been able to help others as well as myself. Can any one wonder that we are grateful to Mrs. Eddy, through whose. purity of life and thought we have received this understanding of God? My earnest prayer is that I may show my gratitude to God and to His faithful servant, by striving to have in me the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus. Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.
