REARED in the thought that I had inherited a delicate constitution, I reached maturity the victim of many false beliefs. As a child I was unable to attend school regularly, and because of physical weakness had to refrain from many of the active sports of youth. Although always having so-called preventive remedies in my possession, I was yet seldom free from bodily pain. As I grew older pulmonary trouble, stomach disorder, and kindred ailments gradually strengthened their hold upon me, while the tobacco habit and a growing fondness for liquor seemed to hang like a curtain between me and the light.
In 1911 chronic pleurisy with tubercular symptoms brought a verdict from my physicians which utterly discouraged me, and I awoke to the fact that after being faithful to medicine for nearly fifty years, I had come to the parting of the ways with nothing to lean upon. It was then that I turned to my mother's God, though not to her church. In looking for a means whereby to make practical use of what I felt to be God's power, I was led to read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. The desire for tobacco and alcoholic stimulants left me almost immediately; the body-racking cough ceased. I began to eat and sleep, to gain in weight and strength, and for five years I have been a well man physically. My mental attitude has also undergone a radical change, so that I have more patience, more gentleness, more love for my fellows, and I endeavor to apply my knowledge of Christian Science to the routine of daily duty.
My former life contained nothing to which I would return, and I look forward with the hope of living a little of the gratitude which I feel for the new understanding of God that came to me while reading the wonderful chapter on Prayer as given us by our revered Leader in the Christian Science text-book.— Minneapolis, Minn.
