Having put aside all the various religions presented to me, as either speculative theories or outworn beliefs, I was after many years content to try to do my duty toward man, as I understood it, while waiting for the revelation of Truth which I knew was bound to come to me. Indeed, my sense of Truth, though I was ignorant of it, preserved me from the falsities of various isms which were presented to me in divers attractive forms, culminating in a spurious form of Christian Science which so repelled me by its evident dishonesty that I found it difficult to listen at first to real Christian Science when it was finally brought to my notice. Theology attracted me not at all, for my studies along Darwin's line had shown me that man as we see him now is not the man spoken of in the Bible as created by God. I could not reconcile the statement that man was made in the image and likeness of God with those made by scientific men as to the gradual improvement of man as we know him from the elementary or original type of a much lower order of being. I threw myself with energy into schemes for the betterment of mankind, and though the work prospered, I, or rather my health, did not. Always ailing, and having been to many distinguished doctors without much success, my own physician, finding he could not cure me, told me I must make up my mind to get on very quietly and to consider that I had a frail thread of life. I may say here that I now look so exceedingly well and healthy that people often say to me, "Oh, it's all very well for you to talk; you don't know what it means to be ill!"
Often I envied those who had faith, and yet, when urged to teach my children of religion, I found it impossible to teach them what I did not believe myself. There came a time, however, when in the hour of need Christian Science was presented to the notice of my husband and myself, and presented in such a sane and wise manner by a most practical friend, known for her good sense, that my husband consented to try it for a physical trouble that doctors were unable to cure. We cannot help smiling at the remembrance of the condescension with which we approached, at that time, this for us momentous subject! He was healed, to our great joy, and then, being a lawyer, did not rest until he got at the root of the matter, and studied to find out what had healed him.
I took treatment very soon also, and was cured in a week of an internal trouble accompanied by violent headaches from which I had suffered for years, and which had obliged me to spend several days each month in a darkened room. I had tried all kinds of poisonous drugs and powerful liniments and crystals to relieve the pain, the only lasting effect from the latter being visible in the turning of my hair white to the temples where I used them. I had tried "mud baths" in Germany, where I had also undergone some minor operations. I had tried dieting under one famous doctor and a different diet under another, with only temporary relief. Although deeply interested in the subject of Christian Science, and most grateful for my healing, I did not believe in it till some two months later. Then in a moment of dire extremity I reached out desperately for the truth, and found it.
