It is now more than ten years since I received my first healing in Christian Science. From early childhood I had suffered from indigestion; but as I was treated hygienically neither my parents nor I feared a fatal termination of my ailment. I grew to womanhood and middle age, when increasingly frequent attacks of gastritis culminated in a most severe attack in which there was an attendant rupture of a blood vessel on the brain. I did not rally as I had hitherto. My sisters urged me to leave my home for a sojourn with them in another town, believing a change would benefit me; but my condition did not improve. Indeed, the time had come when I could retain no food.
My sisters had been reading "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and proposed that I should take Christian Science treatment. While I still hoped that so-called correct living would prove efficacious, I felt no prejudice against what I believed to be the work of God. I fully expected to reap quickly the benefits of Christian Science for myself, because I was so unprejudiced. I felt a distinct satisfaction that I was so well prepared to take this progressive step; but I had much to learn and much to unlearn. After ten days and nights of that first tumultuous passage from sense to Soul, I was pronounced healed; and it was with humility, and in much wonder, that I returned to my home unbelievably well. Then it was I began the study of the "Key" to the Scriptures. The belief in the necessity for a long convalescence was overcome with one treatment; then I was thankful to know I had no weakness to overcome.
Soon after my healing I awoke one night in terror lest the old physical pain was returning. I instantly arose and without premeditation hastily opened the Bible at the Psalms and read song after song of praise and gratitude to the One who heals all our diseases. Peace came to me, and I slept. A few weeks afterward I awoke with the fear that fear was returning; but the thought, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee," restored my confidence and comfort. The memory of hot and cold baths, wet packs, careful dieting, and the like, which I once held in such reverence, now brings thankfulness that I have found instead of such broken reeds the firm foundation of all good and happiness. The thought often comes to me: The Bible is true; it is my privilege to demonstrate it! The Christ is a living presence! This Science has come to us, and we have been prepared to receive it, because one woman of great spirituality had a glorious vision and made it possible for us to follow her, as she says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 4), "so far as she follows Christ."
