Although words can never express my heart's deep gratitude, it is a duty and a pleasure to give out to the world what Christian Science has done for me. I was not only raised from helplessness to health, but through my healing of physical disease I have found an ever present and all loving God to lean upon daily through all the trials of what is called mortal life. Many times when my burden seemed too great to be borne longer I had prayed God to take me out of it, thinking that if I could die I would be free from my suffering.
About twenty years ago my condition became so serious that a surgical operation was performed for the removal of an abnormal growth, which, however, was not found. I was six months recovering from this ordeal sufficiently to be about, though no benefit was received. I continued in this way for ten years, and at the end of this period had submitted to four surgical operations, three of which were abdominal, and from two of which I barely came forth with my life; yet there was no permanent help, although at intervals I was able to go about and attend to daily duties. I was said to be in a very critical condition, but the everlasting arms of Love were around me. The next two years I was in bed forty-two weeks, the immediate cause being hemorrhages and sinking spells. During one of these spells my family and the physician present thought I had passed on. Finally materia medica, which had included the service of fourteen physicians, pronounced my case hopeless.
Friends then spoke to my husband of Christian Science. We had no faith in it that we were conscious of, but my consent to treatment was given, though without any hope of being healed. I was taken from the hospital on a stretcher, placed in a train, and started for Boston, which was one hundred and twenty miles away. I was there put in the care of loving Christian Scientists (although strangers to me then), and the practitioner was called in. I had been on a rigid diet for eight or more years, and for over three there had been no natural action of the lower digestive organs. I also had what physicians pronounced an incurable hernia, caused from surgical operations. In addition, I was said to be mentally unbalanced.
