If any one has reason to be grateful for Christian Science, I am that person. Like Mary Magdalene, I have much to be grateful for, as much has been forgiven me. Seven years ago I was said to be in the last stages of lung trouble, pronounced so by my physicians according to what they considered the most positive evidence. I was practically helpless, in fact suffering from the most distressing conditions. My mental and moral condition was as diseased as the physical. I had no God, having for years searched in vain to find one in the various religions. Finding seeming relief from the paroxysms of pain in blasphemy and profanity, my thoughts were filled with hatred and malice towards both God and mankind. I was also addicted to the excessive use of liquor, taken in large doses to relieve the pain and coughing. This was my condition when Christian Science was first presented to me. It was only as a last resort and upon the earnest solicitation of my wife and friends, and especially to satisfy my wife that I was willing to try anything to get benefit, that I finally consented to take treatment. When the practitioner made the statement that God could heal me, as nothing was impossible to Him, I sneeringly told her I had just enough faith in her remedy to invest five dollars for a week's treatment, as I would for any material remedy that might be suggested to me; and if there was no benefit derived from the week's treatment, that would end it.
I commenced treatment, purchased a copy of Science and Health, and through the reading of this book during the first two days of the treatment, my consciousness was illuminated by the glorious light of Truth and I knew I had found what I was seeking, the Christ-truth as revealed by the blessed Master. After five weeks' treatment I informed the practitioner that I did not need further help, as I thought I could work out my own salvation. After leaving her house and while standing at the corner waiting for a car, I felt, as it were, a wave of uplifting love flooding my consciousness, and as an angel whisper the thought came to me, You have no disease. Then I recalled these words of our text-book, "Glory be to God, and peace to the struggling hearts! Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, and elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man, and his divine Principle, Love, through the revelation and demonstration of life in God!" (Science and Health, p. 45). Christ had indeed rolled the stone of fear from my heart and elevated my thought to at-one-ment and communion with the ever-loving Father, God. My heart was filled with love and gratitude unspeakable to Him for His wonderful goodness to me, an unworthy sinner, in lifting me out of the sense of disease and hate into a consciousness of harmony, health, and love. I resumed my vocation of stenographer and typewriter, notwithstanding that physicians had told me I never would be able to work in an office; and during the seven years I have not lost one day's work on account of illness. I have gained from a weight of about one hundred and twenty pounds to one hundred and eighty-five pounds at the present time. I have during the past six years enjoyed the best of health and am to-day in perfect health.
Great have been the physical benefits received, and my gratitude is deep for them, but beyond comparison with these have been the spiritual benefits. The appetite for liquor and tobacco has been destroyed, I have absolutely no desire for either; it has been years since a profane word has passed my lips; I have found the God I had been seeking, and my heart is filled with love to God and mankind, instead of the former hatred contained therein. Christian Science has brought me into communion with a God who is a God indeed, a good God, a loving Father, who has nothing in store for us but love and goodness; a God to whom we can go in trouble and always find a present help; a God on whom we can cast our every burden and who gives us rest and peace, even the peace "which passeth all understanding."
