ABOUT six years ago I fell and so injured my right hip that I could not get up. Kind friends lifted me and placed me in a conveyance, from which I was carried into my home. A surgeon said there was no fracture, but my injury was so great that for two weeks I could not turn over in bed. At the end of the first month I moved around the room on crutches. I had been quite active physically before this accident, but in consequence of the changed conditions the bodily organs became diseased, and I was being treated by my physician with no good effect, although medicine, massage, electricity, and dietetics were daily resorted to. With disordered stomach, liver, lungs, kidneys, and bowels, all of which was more, it seemed, than I could endure, these different treatments were added to my burden. I was up a few days, then in bed a few days, for over six months, when I gave up the physician, and in despair and indifference as to the end, lay helpless and hopeless on a sick bed. I had been a church member for a number of years, but in my trouble it did not occur to me that God had healing for me.
I had turned away from my wife's entreaty to try Christian Science, but undismayed by the woeful picture before her, she asked a lady, whom we well knew had been brought out of a critical illness through its ministry, to come in and talk with me. This lady came on a Sunday morning when I was at my worst. My wife retired, and then for an hour and a half I listened, in tears and smiles alternately, to the sweetest story that ever fell from mortal lips. I turned completely around, for hope became a large asset. I wanted Christian Science treatment, so I got up and dressed, and did not go to bed again for the illness named.
My wife took me to Kansas City for treatment, as we knew so little about Christian Science at that time, and I was not able to go alone; but after ten days' treatment I gave up my cane, went home and took up my former arduous duty, and worked ten hours a day regularly without fatigue or any bodily inharmony,—and I did not relapse. At this point, however, I made a mistake. I did not read Science literature and so was not fortified against attacks of other diseases. Under severe exposure, about five months after the above named healing, a severe attack of cold in a most violent form made me take to my bed again. I will say that I had been troubled in winters for twenty-five years with bronchial fevers, and this time my case became critical at once. Christian Science again brought me out in a few days, and I was permanently healed. A few years later I was attacked with something akin to leprosy. My hair came out, and a fiery itching attended with soreness of the skin covered my head, including part of my face. This time I was completely healed by the faithful work of my wife, who most of all people had my well being at heart, and whose untiring interest brought about my salvation.
