Twenty years ago, within six weeks of graduation, I was forced to leave a western university owing to a severe attack of nervous prostration. For months I treated with an allopath, a masseuse, an osteopath, and finally with an oculist, thinking possibly there might be some eye defect which was causing the disturbance. At last, in sheer desperation, I turned to Christian Science. The complete healing was not accomplished for a year and a half. After two treatments, however, I took charge of my school which I had accepted in the spring, thinking I would surely be well by school-opening in the fall, and which had now been for two months under a substitute. I told the practitioner it was imperative I should teach as I had no income of my own, and she said. "If teaching is your work, and you feel you should do it, go and do it, knowing that God will give you the necessary strength and courage."
God certainly did give me the strength and the courage. Many times I left the schoolroom at night wondering how I could ever return in the morning, but I never lost an hour. I soon found that, comparatively speaking. Saturdays and Sundays were a greater trial than the school days, for there seemed to be more receptivity to the truth when I was occupied. Sometimes discouragement tried to creep in and tell me I was making no headway, and even the temptation to suicide clung to me for months, a haunting specter. But through it all I held to the truth, studying, and, to the best of my ability, applying the understanding gained. At times when the darkness seemed impenetrable, I would go for help to a city some twenty miles distant where dwelt the nearest Christian Science practitioner. I thank God that, although my healing was slow and my suffering severe. I had the courage given me to stand fast and never reverted to any material remedies. I thank Him, too for the ability and the poise which enabled me to teach, despite the undercurrent of mental turmoil, and to teach so satisfactorily that at the end of the school year I was offered the principalship in this school of nine teachers. As I look back upon that year and a half in the light of present knowledge and experience, I am convinced that the slowness of my healing was due largely to the fact that neither the practitioner nor I expected immediate and perfect results, both being apparently quite forgetful of Mrs. Eddy's words on page 428 of Science and Health, "The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal." I relate this not to cast aspersion upon the practitioners to whose kindly efforts I owed much relief, but that it may be a help to others groping in the dark as I was not realizing that "Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom" (Miscellany. p. 242).
I thank God for the courage and steadfastness of our dear Leader. Mrs. Eddy who stood for the truth that had been revealed to her even when she was the only Christian Scientist in all the world. I am grateful for the divine wisdom and foresight that were given her in establishing the various activities of Christian Science, including our splendid periodicals, and I am humbly grateful that for the past year it has been my privilege to be active in the distribution of these periodicals,—Truth's missionaries, which are hastening the day when "they shall all know me [ God |, from the least of them unto the greatest of them."— Santa Cruz, California.
