About two and a half years ago Christian Science was brought to my notice by my brother-in-law, who had returned to Africa after a prolonged stay in different parts of Europe in search of health. He informed me that the marked physical improvement which I saw in him was the result of Mrs. Eddy's teachings in Christian Science. I was impressed with what he told me, and fell in with his advice that I should read the literature published on the subject. I should mention that, although brought up under Christian influence, I was irreligious. I had a hazy concept of a Supreme Being, but the theological works I had hitherto read only tended to increase my perplexity and prejudice me further against religion.
My spiritual, or rather unspiritual, frame of mind at this time I can only describe as deplorable. It seemed as if I were gradually being overwhelmed by forces against which I was powerless to contend. The favorite ministerial platitudes, that the ways of Providence are inscrutable, that we must not seek to pry into mysteries that are beyond our limited understanding, but resignedly prepare ourselves for the inevitable death which is the lot of all,—these afforded me no consolation, but only served further to embitter me. I wanted some better philosophy than this as a solution of the life-problem.
At this period I was fast drifting into misanthropy. Not understanding the nature of man's relation to God, and regarding evil as real and personal, discord began to manifest itself in different forms. The discordant elements that were sapping my moral stamina, plunging me into gloom and urging me on to the brink of despair, were irreligion, impatience, irritability, suspicion, resentment, ill temper, and a habit of using profane language on the least provocation; also a belief that man is the creature of circumstance, or a superstitious belief in chance. I may here briefly state that those who personally know me well can bear witness that I am no longer in torture to this "brood of conspirators," for they have been swept out of my consciousness.
