CHRISTIAN SCIENCE found me, thirteen years ago, discouraged and disheartened. My wife was a hopeless invalid, and my two children were afflicted with chronic diseases; I was in debt, had lost interest in political and church work, and apparently the worst was yet to come. As a newspaper man since I was twenty years of age, my entire life had been spent in semi-public and public work. It had always been my purpose to stand for right ideas and to labor for the advancement of every good cause, yet, after years of striving for human betterment, of activity in political, reform, temperance, young people's and similar movements, in church and Sunday School work, I found myself almost ready to give up the fight and tempted to exclaim, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
The darkest hours were now approaching. The comrade of my years of struggle for an honorable part in the world's work and achievements, the sharer of my ambitions and hopes, the "little mother" of our once happy household, was getting steadily worse, and finally was prevailed upon to go to a hospital—one which had been established in part through my endeavors—for a serious surgical operation. This trying ordeal through with, we had been promised that all would be sunshine, health, and happiness. But again "human helps" failed, and in a short time my loved one faced the open grave; the only alternative, in the view of the doctors, being a second operation for the removal of an internal growth which otherwise would in a few weeks result most seriously. Having been brought to death's door by the first operation, and having suffered agony for weeks, my poor wife refused to permit another trial of the knife and was prepared to meet her fate.
At this juncture Christian Science was proposed, and the treatment was entered upon; one present treatment and three weeks' absent treatment being sufficient to restore the patient to her usual strength, destroy the inflammation, and remove those abnormal conditions which were the cause of such serious alarm. Some further treatment was obtained —more "to make sure," as I then thought, than anything else; and the trouble was entirely cured, except for some work that it seemed necessary the patient herself should do, and in the doing of which the power of God, the infinite good, was made beautifully and helpfully manifest. From an emaciated, weak, and pain-nacked woman of eighty-four pounds, kept up for years through the heroic exercise of an unconquerable will-power, our "little mother" became a well, strong woman—stronger and freer than in her girlhood— and soon weighed one hundred and ten pounds. She could now go when and where she wished, and enjoyed doing work that she had never before thought possible.
Our loved one had been restored and we were again a happy family indeed. The cloud of mental and financial gloom had been lifted by the perception of the truth of Life which came into our home through this healing, and through the study of Science and Health which was immediately entered upon. Divine Love, made manifest in our daily lives, opened the way for advancement and enabled us to overcome successfully the chronic conditions that afflicted our children. The daughter of fifteen was cured of chronic eye trouble, and our little boy, aged six, who was the victim of chronic bronchial trouble, was made free in a few treatments given him by his mother. He is now a young man of nineteen, and well developed physically. At college he healed himself of painful injuries by his understanding of Christian Science, and so natural to him was the Christ-way of overcoming evil with good, and so manifest were the results, that he became a healer of the sick among his college chums, without having had any instruction save that which comes to every boy reared in a Christian Science family and attending a Christian Science Sunday School.
With myself, the world and its problems assumed a different outlook. I saw that the world's reformers had long been trying to reform society externally, overlooking the chief factor that had to be dealt with, viz., material sense, the lie of life, mental evil—nothingness. These words of Holy Writ came most forcibly to me: "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Like most men of the world, although a church member, I was seeking salvation through human ways and material methods and finding it not. As soon as I had imbibed but a very little of Christian Science, I became more spiritually minded, or right minded, and Life and true living began to appear. This change of thought, this being "born again," converted me from a pessimist, who had decided that after all there wasn't much use in trying to help my brother man, to an optimist, who knew that all things were possible to God, good, to the law of Spirit, and that humanity would free itself from the slavery of "the Pharaohs" of mortal mind just as soon as it was ready to be free.
I found I had something in Christian Science which I could give to others to help them out of their difficulties, and in turn these friends became helpers of still others; so that in a short time great, never-ending streams of help or succor from disease, intemperance, poverty, grief, evil passions, ignorance, superstition, etc., were going out into the world, spreading healing and gladness among the nations of the earth. How different was all this from the shifting and uncertain results of my previous work! Of course, upon the whole, the world had grown better, and true enough I had done my small part in making it so; but I could now point directly to those concrete and multiplying results which follow with such certainty all well-directed efforts of Christian Scientists to increase the sum total of happiness and to enlighten and happify the human race.
It may be of interest in this connection for me to say that poverty and "hard luck" cannot dwell any considerable length of time in the presence of Christian Science—in the Christian Science atmosphere. While materially my endeavors to get out of the rut into which discouraged thought had driven me remained unchanged, i.e., I sought more remunerative work by inquiring of friends, consulting ads, etc., much the same as I had done before—yet my changed thought immediately produced a changed business environment, and better, larger, and more satisfying things began to come to me. Realizing that in Science "progress is the law of God" (Science and Health, p. 233), I know that divine Love guides, leads, outlines, and shapes our careers. We have only to let that Mind be in us, "which was also in Christ Jesus," and it will work out its beneficent purposes in and through us.
I should not neglect to catalogue in this list of evils overcome by Truth, the smoking habit, to which I had been a slave for fifteen years, though I had made many unsuccessful efforts to gain freedom through the exercise of willpower and the use of various medicinal remedies. The desire for the weed was completely obliterated as the result of my own understanding of Truth, and now the company of smokers at Press Club and other newspaper men's gatherings does not offer me the slightest temptation to return to the old bondage.
The healing work has gone on in our family, other members feeling the divine, compassionate touch of Truth. My sister was cured of a serious stomach trouble which had baffled the skill of the best physicians, yet the medicine they had given was so powerful that it produced very undesirable results. Her healing was effected with three treatments in Christian Science. A brother was suffering from what was pronounced a pressure on the brain, a condition which threatened with insanity,—but he was relieved of this trouble in a few treatments; also of the smoking habit. My father, a Civil War veteran, was cured of a lame back from which he had suffered more or less for something like forty years. My mother has been healed of a number of ailments from which she suffered periodically, and is now able to do her own healing work successfully. My married daughter was attacked with a dreaded eruption, the symptoms being most alarming. Conditions developed which, according to the laws of materia medica, always result fatally. Her mother was communicated with by telephone and the treatment begun. The suffering, which had been intense, was immediately relieved, and within an hour the patient was asleep. The next day she was well and strong and entertained a houseful of company. This daughter passed through childbirth twice under Christian Science. The children, now three years and one year old, know nothing of materia medica and are healthy, robust, and happy.
An aunt was taken from a State asylum for the insane, when she was said to be at the point of death, and under Christian Science treatment was restored to her right mind. She was in a dreadful condition physically, and her removal was consented to by the asylum authorities because death within a few days was regarded as inevitable. Christian Science treatment was begun, and in two months the patient was in her normal physical condition; in six months she was mentally clear, and when she passed away, more than a year after the death sentence decreed by the State's eminent alienists was scheduled to take effect, she was among her family and dearest friends. Those in close touch with this case saw many demonstrations of God's love and willingness to heal, and I shall never cease to be grateful to Truth for enabling us to take this loved one from that dreadful place and permitting us to care for her, helpfully, patiently, lovingly, to the end. Another aunt, seventyseven years of age, has been cured of asthmatic trouble, with which she had been a sufferer for years; is gaining understanding by means of which she is able to help herself, and has been enabled to lay aside glasses, which she had worn for more than twenty years.
Freedom from the bondage of fear in all its forms is one of the greatest blessings in Christian Science. The apostle John says, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. . . . He that feareth is not made perfect in love." The assurance and confidence in the power and presence of infinite Love is the priceless boon that has been handed down to us from the ages. The saving of doctors' and druggists' bills is a matter of some importance to those who wish to consider the dollars and cents side of the question. These expenses for a family of four kept me poor for years and finally plunged me into the financial depths. During the thirteen years we have enjoyed the benefits of Christian Science the expense incident to sickness of every sort has been comparatively nothing.
For all the blessings that have come to me, to my family, kinsmen, and friends, I am grateful beyond words to express—grateful to God, and to our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, whose spiritual discernment, singleness of purpose, courage, patience, and wise leadership easily make her the sweetest, noblest character in modern history. It is my desire so to "watch, and pray" (Science and Health, p. 497) as to be worthy of being called her follower—as worthy of this distinction as she is to be called the follower and exemplar to this age of the great Wayshower of the New Testament, the Man of Galilee.
Chicago, Ill.
