This testimony is lovingly sent to help some one who may seem as discouraged as I was in 1893. I was surrounded at home with conscientious examples of devotion and self-sacrifice, but even as a child my heart rebelled against the sad experiences of parents and friends after all their efforts in well-doing. Our thought was to be of service to humanity, and no trouble or expense was spared in educating me for such service. Just before finishing a four years' course in three years, however, I was disabled by an attack of nervous prostration, and for nearly three years was under the care of some of the best physicians in town, the last eight months of the time being confined to my room and bed,—a burden instead of a help.
When told that the condition might last several years as my vitality had been seriously depleted by too ardent pursuit of ideals, it was my nightly prayer that I might never awake to another day. It seemed to me that if God had originated the so-called material laws of fatigue, exhaustion, and disaster which pursued those endeavoring to obey Him and serve mankind, it was strange that Jesus, who knew and did God's will, should not have made well people sick and invalids worse, instead of healing the sick and sinning.
Soon after this we sent for a friend who had been healed by Christian Science to come and tell us about this religion. As she explained it, I saw that Christian Science is indeed the great truth we had always been seeking to make us free. This was on January 3, 1896. I asked for treatment, readily discarding the pellets which had never had the slightest effect on the difficulty. The improvement was so rapid that in five days the healing was complete, to the astonishment of the family, friends, neighbors, and doctor. I was running up and down stairs, taking long walks, and rejoicing in the sweet reasonableness of the explanation of God and man as given in Science and Health.
