WHEN, over two years ago, sick, discouraged, and ready to die, Christian Science found me, and I was healed of all my diseases, my gratitude could have been more easily expressed, but as blessings have multiplied it has so grown and overflown speech and pen, that the joy of my freedom grows more and more difficult to utter. To the suffering world, however, and to the many weary hearts, I owe it to make a brief acknowledgment of my wonderful healing.
For thirty-six years I had lived between a mustard plaster and a hot water bag; a fortune was expended on physicians, nurses, drug-stores, sanitariums, et cetera Temporary relief often came through these means, but fear, that relentless monster, pursued me like a Nemesis. Change of climate for many years, "now north, now east, now west," was another well-tried means to the end which eluded me like a will-o'-the-wisp. Then came a specific disease, and general breakdown, which kept me a bedridden sufferer for two months. After examinations and treatment by eight of New York's best physicians and specialists, and utter failure on my part to respond, I was sent, in a wheel-chair, in a hopeless and pitiful condition to one of the most famous sanitariums in the state, where I received the tenderest and most constant and conscientious care which physicians and trained nurses could bestow. After several weeks, I left this institution seemingly much improved and convalescent.
I must not neglect to state here, that while in this sanitarium I had corresponded with a Christian Science practitioner in New York city, and he was giving me treatment all that time, not knowing that I was receiving material treatment; and a friend also sent me a copy of Science and Health, which I read eagerly, sometimes away into the night. The great expense which attended my treatment, nursing, et cetera, in the sanitarium, namely, one hundred and twenty-five dollars per week (I mention this because Christian Science is so often attacked from a monetary view-point), forced me to leave, and believing that improvement would continue to complete recovery I left the institution only to relapse and collapse. All the previous troubles returned, and like the man of whom Jesus spoke, "seven other spirits" with them. I then went to a tried, skilful, and conscientious physician and surgeon in Chicago. He met me at the station with a trained nurse, and I was taken to a hospital. The nurse was devotion itself to me, and the two labored with patience, and potencies high and low: with baths, massage, and in short every known treatment and remedy supposed to be helpful; but with all their efforts I was, after three months, worse, if that were possible, so I started back to New York to die among my own people.
