It is nearly two years since Christian Science came to me, and I wish that I could half express the joy of it all. Years of suffering, alternating hope and despair in the search for health through all the means known to medical therapeutics, is a fitting preparation for something more than human resources. I had been a sickly child; at ten years of age I was seriously ill, and the after-effects of that sickness subjected me to constant medical treatment. For ten years, on account of serious eye trouble, I had to give up using my eyes on close work.
I married at nineteen, and after our first child was born I was one year in bed. At the age of twenty-six, when my third child was a few months old, I broke down completely and was another whole year in bed. No less than five doctors said that I could not live.
Nearly four years ago my condition became very alarming. A specialist in Chicago told my husband that I was liable to die in any of the attacks of heart trouble which came on frequently. After spending a winter in California, my heart was again examined by the same Chicago specialist. He was utterly discouraged and advised me to stay in bed all summer. The doctors were kind and did all they could, but I was heartbroken and did not want to live in the condition I was in. The one prayer of my life had been to be useful. Naturally energetic and active, every fiber of my nature rebelled against my utter helplessness. Oh. how I prayed to be well, and I constantly yearned for spiritual grace, but I felt that God had turned the light of His countenance from me, and I gave up trying to pray. My earlier Christian faith had satisfied me, but I was told that I could not expect the same sentiment in my religion at forty as in my girlhood, yet I knew that I ought to grow in wisdom and grace.
