After going through many conditions of suffering which physicians had failed to heal, I was told of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I knew absolutely nothing of it, or its author; but the little that was related appealed to me, and I sent to the public library for the book. I made what seemed a great effort to read it; and after each short period of reading would decide that I would read no farther, each time breaking the resolution until finally the book was finished. With the returning of the book, I fully determined to have nothing more to do with it.
However, as the days went by, statements from the book kept coming to me over and over again. I had been told that nothing more could be done for me; and as a matter of course I had made up my mind to die. The statements in Science and Health that God, good, is Life, and death an enemy, set me thinking; and I began to ponder as I never had before. And revelations came to me which I could not do away with, proving that I had surely got something from that first reading. Needless to say that, contrary to my decision, in three weeks I borrowed the book again. Well do I remember that, as I took it in hand for the second reading, I closed my eyes and mentally declared my desire to know the truth, with love-filled thought telling God that I was willing to lay aside preconceived and educated beliefs for Christian Science, if it were the truth; that I would carefully, prayerfully read and practice just the little I understood. Is it any wonder that before I finished reading the book the second time I was healed? Yes, absolutely healed of an organic disease and extreme nervous prostration. How could it have been otherwise when I had opened the door of my thought to divine Love?
During the latter reading (and at times it would last for hours) I became so absorbed that I could not lay the book aside. Daily I was becoming conscious of healing taking place; and in an uplifted moment I exclaimed, ''Oh, that I might know the certainty of all this,—this that seems too wonderful to be true!" Instantly the room seemed to be flooded with a great light, and I lost all sense of self. I had received an answer to my prayer. In all these years which have followed, I have proved without a doubt for myself and others that Christian Science is the truth as practiced by the Master. I had prayed to God from early childhood; but I saw how inconsistent my prayers had generally been, when I once caught a glimpse of Mrs. Eddy's teaching relative to healing (Science and Health, p. 411), "The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is fear, ignorance, or sin."
