When I was a small child my health was very poor, and our family physician said the most careful attention must be given me. He told my mother, when she questioned him closely, that both lungs were affected and I was not long for this world: that even with the best of care I could not possibly live to reach maturity. Nearly a year after this Christian Science was presented to my mother by one of Mrs. Eddy's earliest students, and the truth uttered audibly by this Christian Scientist, healed me instantaneously. My mother then took up the study of this Science, and, putting the truth into practice as far as she understood it, always relied upon her own understanding of the Principle of Christian Science and taught me to do likewise.
Fifteen years later, in the spring of 1914, I accepted a traveling position as private secretary. This necessitated my signing a contract pledging myself to remain with the company while they were on the road, which was nearly a year. None of their, were Christian Scientists or even interested in this great truth. Before I left home a physical ailment, manifesting diseased organs, was troubling me, but I had ignored it as being of no consequence. It now appeared to be getting worse, and the obnoxious odor that seemingly accompanied this ailment filled me with fear and demanded attention, for error must be grappled with and overcome before we can progress further in Truth. So now, with my mother's help, I struggled to overcome this condition.
I was very weak, and when the slightest exertion was made my strength seemed to be completely exhausted; but through it all I clung to the fact that God is my strength, and no time was lost from my work. As she told me long after it was all over, my mother feared this trouble was a malignant growth, for my grandmother had passed on from such a condition years before, and my mother had nursed her through it for over a year. As I wrote home from time to time concerning the symptoms as they manifested themselves, my mother advised me to get a practitioner. I followed her advice, and treatment was begun.
