As I look back over the years, with deepest love and gratitude to our beloved Leader, and to all who have aided me in gaining a larger understanding of the Christ, there comes to my consciousness this thought, that I have passed through three stages of gratitude,—first, for my own healing; second, for the help that I have been able to give to those near to me; and last, for that understanding which enables me to help all mankind.
My besetting weakness was drink. Many times I had tried to stop a habit that I knew was bringing misery to myself and those who loved me, but without avail. Finally, one evening in 1911, after a particularly hard experience, I was led to ask for Christian Science help. The habit was so firmly fixed that for three years my human sense struggled against the divine, until finally my release came; and with that breaking of my fetters was born a love for God that each passing day increases. Standing out clearly comes the memory of the faithful, loving help of my wife, and the patience of her brother, who was living with us, and to whom Love later allowed me to repay the love and sacrifice he expressed to me while I was going through my ordeal.
Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 22), "Love is not hasty to deliver us from temptation, for Love means that we shall be tried and purified;" and I was again to be called upon to prove that the Christ is, indeed, the healing power.
