A friend came to me one day and in tears told me of a most serious hospital experience through which she had just passed. This conversation awakened in my consciousness a deeper sense of gratitude to Mrs. Eddy. I too had had an experience similar to the one just related to me, but through the efficacy of Christian Science had been healed, not only of the physical difficulty, but also of self-pity and of the unhappy mental condition that lives over and over the misfortunes of such an experience.
For four years I suffered from spinal trouble, and the last nineteen months of that time were spent in a sanitarium. The spine was said to be tubercular, and there was what is called an ankylosed double curvature, according to the diagnosis of the physician in charge. Because of my serious condition the treatments were given by the head nurse. I wore a heavy canvas brace reinforced with steels across the back, and it was necessary to have a new one made about every six weeks. At the end of nineteen months I was dismissed as well, though the brace was still worn.
For a few months, while in the sanitarium, I had been reading Science and Health, hoping that when the need for special help came I would be able to lean on Science. After a while I tried to take off the brace, but the pain was so intense that I could not do without it. Then I tried to apply my understanding of Science, and when the knowledge that I too could declare, as did Paul, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me" came to my thought, I found that I was able to do without the brace.
