I wish to give thanks from a heart overflowing with gratitude and love to God, who through Christian Science has met me—as divine Love always will meet—and restored my health. For five years I suffered from sleeplessness in its worst form, and only by taking opiates was I able to obtain any satisfactory sleep. I was often warned of the danger of using these drugs, and too often had read of fatal cases through an overdose. This caution made me careful, but it also created a new fear in me, so much so that I would often go four or five nights without sleep rather than take any sedative. I had often told my friends that something must happen to me, as I could not forever stand the strain either mentally or physically.
After four years of this torture, in the early part of 1908 a breakdown occurred. I do not wish to dwell in this period beyond expressing my gratitude to those who so lovingly attended me both in my home and the nursing-home where I was sent and remained eight weeks. I derived benefit from my rest there and was able to get some sleep, averaging perhaps three hours a night. A sea voyage was now recommended, so I went to South Africa, remaining at the Cape only ten days. However, as the weeks and months passed by I found myself getting bad again, becoming very nervous and terribly afraid, so I again visited my doctor, a leading London specialist, who advised me to go at once to Adelboden in Switzerland. I did so, though very reluctantly, as it was only a few days to Christmas and my two little girls were about to return home for their holidays.
Shortly after my arrival in the hotel, a lady visitor there told me that she had been wonderfully cured through Christian Science, but I then never entertained the idea of seeking help by spiritual means; not that I was antagonistic to Christian Science, I hesitated because I was ignorant of its methods. At the end of January, 1909, I returned home with a record of not more than thirty hours' natural sleep in as many days. I had now arrived at the end of my tether, and man's extremity is God's opportunity. One Sunday evening in February, 1909, my wife said, "Why not go and see the Christian Science practitioner who healed the Adelboden lady?" I jumped up and said, "I will. I will try anything," and at once wrote, asking for an early appointment (the address had been given me).
