Doubtless there are many who, like myself, owe humble gratitude to Christian Science for its saving power from faults of character. I do not remember the time when I did not "hunger and thirst after righteousness," but only in Christian Science was that hunger and thirst satisfied. Even as a child I believed that salvation was to be had in religion, and I tried with all my might to be true to the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and to the church in which I was brought up, but my life was a ceaseless warfare against faults which I never did more than keep at bay. I tried different sects, but got no help, though I attended as many services as I could without inconveniencing others, using the symbols to intensify my realization of their inner meaning and teaching; but after three years I looked on my character with dismay, for it was not one whit better. I then became a "freethinker" and tried in every ideal philosophy and in poetry to find some balm for anxiety and trouble and discord. Getting into a larger thought and away from one's own petty sufferings is certainly a relief, but it was no permanent help, only a soporific.
Nine years ago I was urged to investigate Christian Science. I did not want, however, to do so, as I hoped nothing from it, and I did it simply out of good nature. As I took up "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," I remember that I thought, in a hopeless sort of way, "Can any good come out of Christianity?" But as I read I soon felt that this book had been written by the greatest literary genius the world has ever known. Here was reason— not ignored but daringly faced; here was logic—irrefutable logic; here was philosophy—the grandest and sublimest philosophy ever promulgated; here was ideality—the highest ideal ever aspired to; here was humanity—the broadest, and deepest and most selfless that ever heart felt. I was astounded!
There were many things in that book which, as I read, I would have disputed, but I could not help seeing that amid such reasonings it would be folly to dispute anything, and that the only sane course was to hold my judgment in suspense until I was quite sure that I fully understood all of the author's meaning. I have since tried to put into practice the teaching of that book, with the result that the faults of character have many of them disappeared and others are disappearing, and much which I had believed was good material, in the white light of Truth has shown itself to be rubbish and is being cleared out, so that from certain progress I know it to be true that we can and shall be perfect, even as God is perfect.
