When I began my study of Christian Science, I was utterly discouraged and wretched in both body and mind. I had always been considered delicate, and as added years and marriage brought more work and greater responsibility I became less and less able to take my part in life. For years before hearing of the good news contained in Christian Science, I spent weeks at a time in bed, receiving medical attention continually, and rest cures and massage, without any permanent benefit. During this period I lost all belief in God as a practical reality; and not the least of my troubles was the lonely hopelessness which resulted from this lack of spiritual vision.
I had heard of Christian Science, but at the first glance decided in my ignorance that it could never appeal to any thinking person. That year I had a longer spell of illness than before; and then the doctor informed me that I could never be cured, and must resign myself to invalidism for the rest of my life on account of my heart. This blow in its extremity proved to be God's opportunity, for it turned my thoughts again towards Christian Science, this time humbly, to investigate it with sincerity.
A friend lent me the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and I opened it one night thinking I might manage to read a few pages, weak as I was. But the pages spread to chapters, and I read on and on with the ever increasing wonder of discovery. Words could never tell what that first reading meant to me! The scales fell from my eyes, and I saw that this was the key to the riddle of life which had loomed before me as such an inscrutable and terrible mystery! I read on eagerly, hungrily; and gradually joy flooded my consciousness, blotting out the bitterness and fear, and replacing them with a far-reaching hope. I knew I had found God.
