From my earliest recollections I was conscious of a desire, which increased with time, to know the truth about being,—a desire to know about God and man. Throughout childhood and later as a young woman I puzzled over these ever recurring questions, as mankind throughout all ages has done: Why are we here? Where did we come from? And what will become of us when we leave here? I believed there was a reason for everything, and that sometime I would learn the reason for being. When I learned about cause and effect in school, I was even more certain that I would some day understand the primal cause.
One day I asked a Christian Scientist if she could help me with what seemed to be a slight physical discord. She complied lovingly by giving me a few references to read. The first one to which I turned is on page 468 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I read and reread that and the next three pages carefully, and since then have never wavered from the certainty that I found the truth about causation, or our creator, God. Soon after this experience my mother, who had been practically an invalid for nearly twenty years, yielded her prejudice against Christian Science and accepted treatment. Her healing was accomplished in a very few months; she was indeed made free, for in the words of St. Paul the "old man with his deeds" was put off. Materia medica had given us only the verdict of "slow death," for she had been pronounced incurable. She was suffering from chronic stomach and bowel trouble with many complications, and was threatened with the third attack of nervous prostration when she began Christian Science treatment. To one who was not a Christian Scientist, it seemed indeed a miracle that while reading from the textbook she should be healed instantaneously of defective eyesight, for which she had worn glasses a great many years.
Though I did not at first become interested in Christian Science for physical heeding, in common with all those "weary wanderers, athirst in the desert" (Science and Health, p. 570), I have been freed from several so-called minor physical ailments, including chronic nervous headaches from which I often suffered for two weeks at a time. During the first few months after I began to read Science and Health, before I realized it I was healed of lifelong suffering from hay fever, which I was supposed to have inherited and which occasioned a great deal of inconvenience. For years I had been warned not to go out in the heat of the day, for exposure to the sun seemed to aggravate the condition and bring on an acute attack; but after reading and realizing the truth of the one hundred and twenty first psalm, in the light of Christian Science, I have never hesitated to venture out on the hottest days and to do whatever is necessary.
