It is with deep gratitude that I add my testimony to the efficacy of Christian Science in bringing better conditions into my life,—better health, better morals, and quickened spiritual understanding. A few years ago I was an unhappy, sickly girl, with belief in an inherited heart trouble, which had been greatly aggravated by scarlet fever, contracted when on duty as a nurse in the contagion ward. When I left the hospital for my home, my one desire was to get well, so that I could finish my training, as I loved the work and had already had fourteen months' experience. At this time we moved to Dayton, Ohio, and I applied for admission to the hospital there, so that I could be near home; but the evidence of heart trouble prevented my passing the physical examination.
This was in the fall of 1907. The following winter was one of the worst I had experienced, between ill health and the bitter disappointment of not being allowed to continue my hospital training. The symptoms seemed to be so much worse that my family were very much alarmed, and I thought there could be but one termination. Early in the spring of 1908, after taking a kind of medicine all winter on which I had always depended for help, but this time without result, I had a plain talk with my doctor, who told me that I might live a number of years, but I would never be well. He said further, that I would have to be very careful, and give up active exercise, such as long walks, running up stairs, also tennis, swimming, and all those things which I had formerly enjoyed.
I went home in the depth of depression over the prospect of being a burden to my family, and only wished that the end would come soon. I had known of Christian Science for some time, and one Sunday morning in the early spring I attended the church service. I continued in this course from that time on, and the following January joined the church. On that first Sunday I had walked home with an earnest student of Christian Science, and I am deeply grateful for this lady's efforts to help me gain an understanding of the truth.
