I am very thankful for what Christian Science has done for me. For almost two years I swung like a pendulum between a fixity and nothing, laboring under the delusion that all my friends were persecuting me, and that my dear wife and relatives were trying to harm me. This was the error which finally yielded to the truth.
During my mental affliction there were periods of from one month to four months when I knew nothing, but drifted, as they tell me now, from Christian Science to medicine and from medicine to Christian Science, always to learn a little more of the Science of being, then seemingly to fall farther back into error. This continued until June, 1913, when I became violent and was sent to a sanitarium. While confined in that place I became acquainted with a young doctor, and after having been there for about two months, as I could see no improvement in my condition I asked him what my disease was. He gave me a thorough examination, asked a great number of questions, and then told me I was suffering from paresis.
The nature of my trouble had been kept from me by the Christian Science practitioner and my wife, and for about ten days I was like a man that was drugged, for I had understanding enough to know what is said about this disease. Then came the battle of my life, the battle with the flesh. Some time afterward I again asked the doctor the symptoms of a man suffering from the disease named. He told me, and at my request. showed me some patients suffering from the same trouble. My case was undoubtedly the same. As soon as I became aware of this I would sit and think. The first thought that came to me was of the faithful Christian Science practitioner and then of my wife. One day a message was recalled—words that the practitioner had spoken over a year and a half before. They came to me as if an angel had sent them, to the effect that as God is never insane, man as His likeness never could be so, and that God is good. At another time came the thought that we should rejoice, for, as Paul says, "We are the children of God." Then it seemed as if I could hear my wife singing softly the words of Mrs. Eddy's hymn. "Shepherd, show me how to go" (Hymnal, p. 237).
