Words are inadequate to express my gratitude for the joy and manifold blessings of Christian Science,—only a life of ministry and love can do this. About eight years ago, while I was living in an eastern city, a friend loaned me a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, and its spiritual beauty so appealed to me that I purchased a copy for my own use. The faithful pursuance of its study for two years failed to change my opinion that it was too transcendental to be practical, steeped as I was in the belief of the efficacy of material remedies. As a member of an orthodox church I believed also that there could be no exemption from sickness and death this side of the tomb.
From babyhood I had suffered from chronic bowel disorder, which baffled the skill of the best physicians, and which finally developed an intestinal catarrh that in turn became chronic. For several years I was under the constant treatment of a specialist whose reputation was international; but I found no relief, and when I was preparing to come to my new home in the West he frankly told me there was no hope for my cure; that I could only "be good to myself." Knowing of my interest in Christian Science, he warned me, as my case was not "imaginary" and as I valued my life, never to trust Christian Science, for the bowels were in such a condition that, even if they should act, the failure to use an enema might prove fatal.
After a year's stay in Portland, still rigidly following the specialist's advice, I grew steadily worse. Believing death inevitable unless there was speedy relief, I went with fear and trembling to a Christian Science practitioner. That was over six years ago, and I have never since that day resorted to a material remedy. The condition of twenty-five years' standing was overcome with the first treatment, and there has never been the least vestige of a return. With this healing there fell away from me chronic inflammation of the pharynx and yearly attacks of a throat trouble which often kept me bedfast a week at a time.
