About forty years ago, while living in Chicago, I was taken ill with severe sickness. I first called on the family doctor; but after a couple of months of his treatment I woke up to the startling fact that his medicine was not reaching the spot. I then began to change doctors, not hurriedly, but giving each one what I thought was a fair trial. This went on until I had tried not less than a dozen remedies, ranging from what the old doctors gave me down through all the quack and home remedies that my friends would tell me of. I had spent weeks at some of the noted health resorts of our country. I had fallen off in weight some thirty-five pounds; and when a one hundred and forty-five pound man loses thirty-five of those pounds, he is not pleasant to look upon.
One day my old employer came to see me. "Here is what I want you to do," he said. "I will send my coachman over to-morrow, and he will take you down to my family doctor;" and he mentioned the name of a doctor who had a national reputation. "He will examine you, and when he gets through he will tell you just exactly what is the matter with you. If he can cure you, he will tell you so; and if he can't cure you, he will also tell you." The next day I had the examination; and if I live to be a thousand years old, I shall never forget the scare this doctor gave me. "You are suffering from a cancer of the stomach," he said, "and it has got to a stage now where I can do nothing for you. I can give you some medicine to ease the pain, but that is all; and if you have any home affairs that you wish to straighten out before it is too late, it might be well to do so." For the reader who has never had a death sentence passed upon him, it will be hard to understand my feelings. It was while I was seeking a way to commit suicide to get free from the pain, a few days later, that a Masonic brother, who is a Christian Scientist, discovered me and persuaded me to give Christian Science a trial. At that time I had no faith that Christian Science would heal me, and I told this brother so; but I finally promised him I would give it a week's trial. The practitioner who took my case was a woman who had just returned from a visit to Mrs. Eddy in Boston. I asked her what her charge would be, as my money was running low. She said it would be one dollar a treatment; so I paid her seven dollars in advance for the week's work. She also sold me "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
I remember the first treatment this practitioner gave me. If it had not been that I had given my word that I would try Christian Science for a week, I should have ordered her from my sight. She told me that I could eat any kind of food I wanted, and it would not hurt me; so I ventured to follow her advice, but the food did hurt me. I followed this faithfully for four days, and read the book almost through. On the fourth day, just when it seemed to me that every hour would be my last, she startled me with the declaration that I was healed; but her words fell on deaf ears. I thought I would not live the night through, and told her so. After she had left me I picked up the little book. I opened it at random, and a passage that I had overlooked interested me, and I fell asleep while reading it. And now comes the wonder! Sleep was something I had not enjoyed for months; yet now I slept for five hours, and when I awoke I felt just as fresh and healthy as I ever had in my life. There was not a pain to bother me. The only thing I remember now is that I was ravenously hungry. I got up and dressed, and went out to supper; and it took two or three ordinary meals to satisfy me. That night I slept, and the next morning I made all haste to call upon this Christian Science practitioner; and while she laughed and assured me that it was just God's regular business to do work like that, I babbled like a parrot and pinched myself to make sure I was alive. This practitioner insisted on handing me back three of the seven dollars I had paid her. Three months later, when I was the picture of health, she did ask me to get up in a Wednesday night meeting and give a testimony of my healing, which I did. At that time I started to cry this great truth from the housetops; but I received so many rebuffs, and was set down as crazy so often, that I gave it up. I have written this simply because I feel it my duty to do so.
