It was in the fall of 1909 that I first called on a Christian Science practitioner and was given two or three pamphlets, which I read now and then during the following year. About the same time a friend loaned me a copy of Science and Health, but it was scarcely looked at. When I did read it I was not ready to accept its message, and after a few weeks the book was returned to the friend who had so kindly spared it. My first visit to a Christian Science church is not to be forgotten. I have often looked back with gratitude upon that first experience of silent prayer, and the audible repetition afterward of the Lord's Prayer. The Lesson-Sermon, too, was so different from the sermons to which I was accustomed. Can one ever be too appreciative of the peaceful uniformity of a Christian Science service?
While on my way to Seattle in January, 1911, a friend spoke to me about Christian Scientists and their methods. Though his remarks were not favorable to Christian Science, they led me to make a more earnest investigation of this teaching. A week or two later rheumatism and a severe cold attacked me, so I called on a Christian Science practitioner for help. The same day I bought a copy of Science and Health, and that night read it earnestly. The cold vanished, and the rheumatism, which had troubled me frequently, also disappeared a few days afterward, never to return. Later in the year the desire for tobacco left me. While I had been a heavy user of the weed, I had never cared much for drink, but all desire for liquor has also gone.
Then something unexpected happened. One day while at work I discovered that my glasses had been left at home. I had not been able to work without them for more than twenty years, having been ordered to wear them constantly if I did not want to lose my sight; but I was able to read without them that day and have never needed them since. My eyes had been a source of constant anxiety to me up to that time, for I had suffered much with them in addition to having to wear glasses.
