I think no one can have greater cause for gratitude for Christian Science than I have; for it has given to me all I possess of good to-day in the way of health, joy, and peace in my life.
Christian Science came to me when I was hopeless, both mentally and physically. I had been longing for years for that peace "which passeth all understanding," but could not find it. Although I tried to put into practice what the church I belonged to taught, I got no results from so doing. Also in 1905, after eighteen years of treatment by the doctors, one who was called in told me he could do no more for me; he could not even operate. He said I might live a year or two, but would always suffer; that the condition was an internal stomach trouble. This verdict did not affect me nearly so much as the inability to gain the peace that I had desired for so long.
Just twelve months afterwards I was talking over with a friend a sermon I had heard which greatly distressed me. She said, "I am afraid I cannot help you, but I have a little book which was lent to me some two years ago. I cannot see anything in it myself, but it might help you." She brought the book in the next day, and it proved to be "No and Yes" by Mary Baker Eddy. I at once started to read it, but did not seem to understand it. When I had finished reading it through, not having understood it, I began to pack it up to return, when something seemed to say to me, Why not read it again and get the dictionary? I listened and obeyed; and before I was halfway through the book a second time I knew I had found the way to get that peace I had so long craved for; and as I went on reading, I saw it taught that all cause is mental. As I reasoned this out I realized that if this were so, the physical condition must have a mental origin. I began to put into practice what I read in this little book; and by the time I had finished reading it I was both spiritually and physically healed.
