About the time I entered high school, some seventeen years ago, I became acquainted with Christian Science through my mother, who, on her return from a near-by city, told me not only of the miraculous healing of a relative, whom the physicians had given up as incurable, but also of many other wonderful things that were being accomplished, which had heretofore been considered impossible. Later, my mother purchased a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy; and I shall never forget the joy of finding, as we pored over its pages together, a textbook on thinking which not only was as logical and as accurate as the study of mathematics, but was capable of solving and healing every woeful condition of the human race. I must confess that my understanding of Christian Science at this time was meager and purely theoretical. I decided, however, that if the time ever came when I should need assistance, I would call on a practitioner of Christian Science.
During the following twelve years I remained in normal health. However, through a change of environment and associations I became addicted to the use of cigarettes and intoxicating liquors. After several years' indulgence, I found that unless these excesses were stopped I should find myself not only incapable of performing my duties, but also a hopeless moral degenerate. Such thoughts startled me into a frantic attempt to extricate myself from the entangling influences into which I had fallen, but all attempts failed. Kind friends and rightfully disgusted relatives continually reminded me of my condition, but had nothing to offer with which to heal my desires except will-power and suppression.
In my dire need, I again took up the study of Christian Science, and prayerfully asked God for a means of deliverance. I was soon led to enlist in the army, and was sent to Vancouver Barracks, Washington. I arrived there in need of immediate help, and was directed to a Christian Science practitioner who was dividing her time so that she could volunteer half of it to war services, the Camp Welfare work not yet having been established. Under such loving and self-sacrificing care, I was healed of the desire for liquor and cigarettes; also was lifted far above my former environmental conditions, both morally and spiritually. Words become inadequate to express my gratitude for the destruction of the mesmeric influence of that satanic incubus whose insidious power, felt but unseen, seemed ever present to suppress, discourage, cripple, and destroy every attempt to rise above its seeming control.
