From a heart running over with gladness and joy I want to express my gratitude for what Christian Science has been to me these sixteen years.
Since girlhood it had always been my desire to be able to read and understand the Bible. At the age of ten years I was confirmed in the Protestant church; but this was only to comply with my mother's wishes, not from my own conviction. Though I started the study of the Bible several times, I always had to give it up, disappointed that it was a closed book to me. When I got a position as a private teacher at a "school with the Bible," in January, 1908, I was very much pleased, because I hoped to learn more of the Bible there. I bought an English Bible so as to force myself to keep my thoughts concentrated on this study; but after some months I gave it up again, as it seemed a waste of time and energy. In June, 1909, I went to Holland for the purpose of graduating in the English language, and visited the home of some Christian Scientists. I had never heard the term "Christian Science," but when on the evening of my arrival at The Hague these two words, thus coupled together, were repeatedly used in the course of the family conversation, I was very much prejudiced against it, as I had concluded that a science could never be Christian. However, when at ten o'clock that night I retired, I could not omit asking for a book in which I could read about this new Science; and my friends gave me a copy of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
Needless to say, I was very much struck by the title—"with Key to the Scriptures," as it was a key to the Bible which I had been seeking for over fourteen years. I went up to my bedroom, and when I opened the book at the Preface I read those wonderful opening words that were quite a vision to me: "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." There was "a sustaining infinite" then! I read on and on, forgot all about fatigue, and it must have been far into the night before I laid the book aside and fell asleep.
