"Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent." This verse of the psalmist came to me as a direct command to open my lips and give thanks forever. Having learned both the necessity and reward of obeying all heavenly imparted messages, I offer my testimony. Through childhood and girlhood my physique was considered frail, and my school career was often interrupted by illness. As I grew into womanhood, and undertook the responsibilities of my profession, that of teaching, it became painfully evident that I was living on the verge of my endurance. Several times, during vacations, I was obliged to take systematic rest-cure, so as to build up some reserve force for the ensuing term. Stomach trouble, which had pursued me from my erliest childhood, had at various periods demanded a restricted diet, but the prediction of complete invalidism caused me neither to fear nor to foresee danger.
Knowing of no higher protection, it was inevitable that the mortal law should be most comprehensively fulfilled, and in the fulfilling that not a jot or tittle should be subtracted from the burden of my suffering or from the sorrow that my suffering caused others. Almost five years ago came a climax in what seemed a final breakdown. Recurrent abdominal trouble, with its train of miseries, demanded an operation, and this I underwent with a fervent hope and strong conviction that so harsh a measure would forcibly adjust the balance for health. But oh, the pity of an operation on a frail physique! In a year and a half I found myself in the same hospital, under the same loving care, but absolutely hopeless and helpless! I not only recited to myself daily, hourly, the failure of all I held dear to revivify or uplift, but was consumed with a burning resentment that in being deprived of my usefulness I was an object of pity and commiseration to all. Therein lay the depth of my despair, and yet the chief incentive for any sacrifice.
I had refused Christian Science before my second hospital experience, because in my judgment it was not a science. I had delved into technical philosophies, had taught the fundamentals of several sciences, and I protested that religion and Science could not coalesce; but, as our textbook says, "sneers at the application of the word Science to Christianity cannot prevent that from being scientific which is based on divine Principle, demonstrated according to a divine given rule, and subjected to proof" (Science and Health, p. 341). In my extremity, and with deep-rooted yearning to regain my usefulness and place, I asked for what I had rejected.
