Hoping my testimony will benefit some one who is seeking the light, I should like to tell how I was led and guided in my mental journey from the darkness of night to the marvelous light of day.
When I was quite a little girl my grandmother came to live with us. She was a woman of culture and profoundly religious. She told many Bible stories to my younger sister and me, but the one that impressed me most was the story of Christ's second coming. "Yes," she said, "he is coming again, that we may have life abundantly." In childlike glee I would exclaim, "Oh, won't I be glad to see him!" A few years later she passed on; and I missed her gentle influence and guidance, which had prepared my thought for the good that was to come.
My health was rapidly declining, and many doctors were consulted, but none gave me relief or even encouragement. Then I was advised to go to a specialist; but, alas, his method of treatment, which was allopathic,— examinations, surgery, strong drugs, —was so severe that it seemed terrible to me. All material hopes were gone; and I was utterly in despair. One night, when the hours seemed darkest, just before dawn, I surrendered all and mentally cried out, "O God, help me! " Immediately all pain ceased, and there was calm and peace divine; for I leaned and rested on Deity. When morning came I began to search in the Bible to learn more of God; and I found some wonderful truths. I was accustomed to go to our attic, where there was quiet, to study the Bible. One day I was confounded by being confronted by a stone wall, as it were, in my thinking; all inspiration had gone,—I could not understand it. I closed the Bible; at the same time I declared and knew by intuition that somewhere there was a book that spiritually interpreted the Bible. Then followed a few more years of mental wandering in the wilderness of doubt, and the days were as dark and dreary as ever.
