We are told in the Bible to get wisdom, but with all our getting to get understanding, that understanding which "is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it." Many blessings have been mine, but the greatest of these is the realization of the Christ, Truth, as taught in Christian Science. As the oldest of a large family I remember, though then but a child, that my parents lost four of their eight children, although everything that material help could possibly do had been done for them. The baby, the joy of the household, was the victim of a so-called contagious disease, which terminated in a spinal trouble, his dreadful suffering ending in death. Well do I remember that my grieved father thought God had afflicted this innocent little one because of some mistake or unfaithfulness of his own, and gladly would he have endured the tortures which the baby appeared to suffer.
How different was the experience in my own home last spring, when our year-old daughter and her brother of five had the same contagious disease. A Christian Science practitioner was called in, and relying upon divine help the entire family retired to rest each night. The children slept peacefully most of the night, and played happily by day. The attendant stomach trouble was immediately overcome in both cases, and the coughing ceased entirely in much less than the time allotted by material law. This last symptom was so light that my mother, who spent several afternoons with the children, never in any way appeared to suspect the trouble, and even my next-door neighbor did not know the reason for my not going in at her special request to see her newly-born babe at that time.
Another experience for which I have reason to be grateful is that of peaceful and comfortable childbirth of about thirty minutes' duration. I was not sick, and felt as strong and well as before; was able to walk around the room every day, and was caring for the little one before the end of the first week. I had entertained my mother at lunch that day, and she had gone home never . suspecting the arrival of our little daughter at four o'clock of that same afternoon, with my practitioner as the only one with me. Knowing that my mother had lost two infants at such times, together with my own experience at the birth of our first child,—eighteen hours of pain, the use of instruments, two physicians, my nurse, husband, and mother in attendance, all of whom were busy,—I realize that my faithful practitioner had much to overcome for me.
