Twenty years ago I was an agnostic. Teaching had been my occupation for many years, and in looking over the elementary sciences preparatory for class instruction, I was in a very vivid way impressed with the indestructibility of matter. In pursuance of these awakened ideas I commenced the study of evolution, with a sincere hope that I might therein find God. The works of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and Haeckel were earnestly studied, and many years were spent in searching for the truth. By the time I had finished the works of Haeckel I was in a deplorable state of mind, with no spiritual platform, but with a dozen questions which I felt must be answered for me by some modern scientific writer. At this time I wanted no answer from the theological side. The revelation of Truth was begun in me about the early part of 1907, although I did not immediately recognize it as such; but every answer that I desired was given me, until all mooted points were made clear. The answers came to me, with no effort on my part, through books or magazines brought to me by friends, or through glances at some scientific review that was handed me.
Several years I had been a student along psychic lines, and no work of note remained unknown to me. As a natural sequence I became a member of The London Psychical Research Society, also of the American Society of Psychical Research. I had become somewhat tired of the line of thought and had sufficiently cleared and settled my own mentality on this subject, so that during the last week in December, 1907, I hesitated whether to renew my membership for the year 1908. At this time one question remained unanswered and somehow I felt impressed to remain with the Society one more year. The first pamphlet that I received in January contained an article which answered this last question, and I was ready then to turn my thoughts wholly from material things to spiritual.
My physical condition at this time was anything but good. In October, 1905, I was seriously ill and went through an operation for gall-stones, and on my return home, after a few months in the hospital, I continued in a semiinvalid state. I was unable to walk any distance, could not ride in steam or electric cars, could not exert any strength with my right side to use a broom or lift a weight, and there was a steady decrease of general strength. The necessity of care as to my diet had been so persistently impressed upon me that I ate very little, and was in constant fear lest even this should cause distress, as I also suffered from bowel trouble. One evening I traversed mentally the whole field of my scientific and psychical study, and wondered what good I had received from twenty years of research. I began to see that if I was in harmony with the power that controlled the universe, there certainly could be no discord; but what could I do to get that harmony? If I could erase the concepts of sickness from my brain, they must be negations, the opposite of the real and the good. The way then seemed clear—I must trust God, affirm and realize the good, the actualities of being; and this I tried to do.
