In March, 1912, I was stricken with what three of the best doctors in the state pronounced an incurable heart malady. Everything seemed to have gone wrong with that organ, including a ruptured condition that rendered me incapable of any exertion and very little exercise, and with the extreme penalty always hanging over my head. This condition lasted several months, during which I was under special care in a hospital. At regular intervals Christian Science was offered to me by kind friends. Knowing nothing of Christian Science or its results, it sounded like a ridiculous proposition to me. However, early in November after everything known to medical science had been done and the end seemed to be drawing near, I suggested to my wife that as Christian Science had been offered by those we knew were honest and earnest in their desire to help us, perhaps we had better call a practitioner and find out just what they had to offer, and what the demands. It was the last straw, so to speak, and she immediately consented, and called up a practitioner who agreed to call the following morning. We were at the time in San Francisco.
The person who appeared in the morning was so different from what I expected, and her demands were so much easier to meet than I had thought, that I could not but consent to do as she asked, which was to get the Christian Science textbook and begin the study of it. She appeared to be quite confident that I could be healed and agreed to give me treatment just as soon as I was ready to set aside material remedies, which were in abundant evidence. Her statements with regard to the nature and character of God were so uplifting that when she left I felt some hope of salvation from that hell of fire and brimstone that I had been taught to fear. The same afternoon I obtained a copy of Science and Health and eagerly began to study its contents. When I reached page fourteen and that most wonderful statement beginning on line twelve, I seemed to realize that the key to heaven itself was contained in it, and I read and reread and pondered it until a desire to pray came to me and I prayed as only those can who fully realize their helplessness and entire dependence on a higher power. Everything was forgotten but the desire to know something definite about God.
After a time—I never knew how long—I became aware of a great change in my physical condition. A distressing headache had entirely vanished and gradually I became conscious of a complete transformation throughout my entire system. I was healed and I knew it, and the joy and peace that came to me in that hour neither tongue nor pen can describe. It was a foretaste of heaven never to be forgotten. This wonderful experience came to me sometime during the night, and when I awoke in the morning after the first natural, healthy sleep I had enjoyed for months, I arose, dressed, and ate a hearty breakfast with my family. For many days I had not been allowed to sit up or partake of solid food. Now I just wish to say that in the seven years that have elapsed since that eventful night I have not spent one hour in idleness from heart trouble. I have done many kinds of hard work and am at present strong and hearty. I wish to express my gratitude for the dear woman who has been the instrument in God's hand for revealing this true way of salvation from sickness as well as from sin; also for the periodicals which are such helps along the way. My highest ambition is to be a true Christian Scientist.— Bray, Calif.
