The first Christian Science meeting I attended, about twelve years ago, stands out clearly in memory. The young lady who afterward became my wife accompanied me, and it was also her first visit. I stipulated that we should occupy seats next the door, so that should there be any attempt to talk to us after the meeting we could escape quickly. Since then I have attended over eighteen hundred such meetings, and am quite satisfied that no effort, is ever made to influence any one. I was at once struck with the fact that Christian Science is a religion of works.
At that time I was in a very disturbed mental condition, continually worrying and always taking a gloomy view of the future, expecting trouble and very often getting it. I also had a violent temper and was a slave to tobacco. My general mental condition was, it seemed to me, the result of a lack of certainty as to whether there was a God, or if there was, whether He was really a power in the affairs of men, for evil and misfortune appeared very powerful all around and God seemed far away.
Christian Science gave me a reasonable and logical view of God and of His relation to man, and the mental condition at once began to improve. Gradually, as Christian Science was put into practice, the habit of worrying was replaced by the habit of taking a bright, wholesome view of the future. The result has been that instead of looking for trouble I am always expecting good to happen, and it is always happening. The tobacco habit stuck to me for some time, but the true sense of what constitutes satisfaction presently eliminated from consciousness all desire for the weed. The bad temper was much slower in yielding, but it gave way in proportion to my sincere practice of Christian Science, and I have long enjoyed a measure of freedom from it for which much gratitude is felt. Christian Science has enabled me to avoid the use of alcohol and profane language, and has helped me in a host of ways, besides keeping me in good physical health all these years.
