Christian Science came to me in the hour of my greatest need, when all material means had failed to give me permanent relief. Grief at the loss of my only child, pain from physical suffering, and a great fear of death had seemed to obscure the last ray of light; all was dark, and I almost lost faith in the God I had tried to love and serve. I thought that He had taken my boy and that my sufferings were His means of correcting me, and that I should not murmur against Him; but He seemed so far away, and I was so lonely. I sought help from the Bible, but "my concept of what I read was material. I had no comprehension of Christ, Truth, as revealed in Christian Science, but at this time a friend loaned me a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I was as one "athirst in the desert. . . . waiting and watching for rest and drink" (Ibid., p. 570), when Truth was found, and how sweet it was to drink at its fount! In this little book I found a key to the Scriptures, and those sacred pages, once so obscure, are now illumined. As Mrs. Eddy says, "Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Science has opened the door of the human understanding" (ibid., p. 99).
My health began to improve, and in a few months I was able to lay aside glasses which I had worn for years; my eyes were healed. A catarrhal condition of the head, throat, and lungs, which had held me in bondage to supposed material laws, was greatly relieved. I had chronic female and bowel trouble, which seemed so real to me that when I called for help from a Christian Science practitioner, I had no thought of cure; I expected relief only, but I received more. The scales fell from my eyes, and the spiritual uplift and light revealed in that first treatment changed my concept of being. The mental worries and false sense of being seemed to sink into oblivion. I forgot all else in the realization of this grand truth. I continued to take treatment about three weeks, and then felt that I was entirely well. None of the conditions have troubled me since, except the bowel disease, which after a few months disappeared entirely.
I wanted to know more of this living, practical truth, so I subscribed for the Journal and Sentinel and began a daily study of the Lesson-Sermon. I found a balm for sorrow, an antidote for hatred, a remedy for all mental discord in the one Mind, and have been able to prove in some measure that God is Love. Instead of bondage to the flesh, thought has been lifted heavenward, its true abiding-place, where the real man is found to have remained always in the bosom of the Father. This is the true foundation on which we all must build; Christ is the door through which we must enter the kingdom, — the reign of harmony.
