Two or three years before hearing of Christian Science I had ceased to attend church, and had also lost faith in materia medica during an illness which two doctors failed to diagnose. I had frequent attacks of pain, which usually kept me in bed for three or four days at a time. Finally I read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy; and from the opening page I knew that it held the true explanation of life. On page 3 she says: "Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution." This helped me to see clearly so many things which had puzzled me that I was instantaneously healed of astigmatism, for sight is in reality the spiritual perception of Truth. I put away the glasses, which I had worn for years when reading, and have never felt the slightest need of them since.
The next time I had one of my usual attacks of pain I asked a Christian Scientist to help me, and was up within twenty-four hours. A few week later I developed a bad cough, and to please some one else allowed a specialist to examine me. He told me that both my lungs were badly affected, and that I ought not to contemplate traveling to England by way of Siberia (we were then living in the Far East), because the dust at that time of the year would be bad for me. I went to the same Scientist who had helped me before. She treated me for about ten days, after which the doctor again examined me. This time he said that my lungs were perfectly sound and that I could go through Siberia if I wished to do so.
I awoke one night on the voyage with an unusually severe attack of pain. The agony was so great that I could not think clearly enough even to recall any sentences from Science and Health to help me; but the first line of an old hymn came to me, "Peace, perfect peace;" so I lifted my thought above the suffering, into the realization of the meaning of those words. In a few moments I was fast asleep, and woke the next morning not only perfectly well, but also healed of the tendency to seasickness. That was in 1914; and only once since then have I had a touch of the old complaint. It was one morning when I had been recalling on the previous night some circumstances of my life which had distressed me at the time of my illness. Fortunately, I was staying in the house with practitioner, to whom I explained the reason for the relapse. After a few minutes, during which she kindly prayed for me, it was really delightful to feel the pain instantaneously leave, and I got up as soon as I had breakfasted. It is years since I spent a whole day in bed.
