In the spring of 1918, just to please a friend I borrowed a copy of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I had read it about half through, and thought I had caught the author's meaning, when my little girl broke her arm. I decided that now was the time to try Christian Science. I had never heard of a practitioner. I just sat down, with several neighbors trying to tell me what to do, and declared over and over again that she was not hurt and could not suffer. Never once did I think of God as present to heal her. I thought that all Christian Scientists did was to say there was nothing wrong! When the child was not helped at the end of fifteen or twenty minutes I took her to a doctor and declared there was nothing to Christian Science.
The following year was filled with suffering for me and for my family. We were all in the hospital at one time. Spring found us weak and discouraged. Our income was very small, and there were debts. Despair seemed to get hold of me. For many years I had been getting more and more discouraged with conditions as I found them. I was never strong; and I began to wonder if there really was a God who permitted such suffering, physical and mental, as I had to undergo. At this time another friend offered me a set of Mrs. Eddy's writings, stating that they helped her to live above her surroundings. I took the books, fearing if I believed them that I would go to hell for doing so; but I judged that no hell could be much worse than the one I was in. My need was so great I felt desperate.
I shall never forget that reading of the textbook. Every page was so full of wonderful promises! But I was still a little afraid I was mistaken, that a little farther on it would not be so grand—but I was not disappointed. When I had finished I sent up a great desire to God to make me a good Christian Scientist. I saw I would need courage to step out from my old beliefs; but I made the start without a single regret or backward look. My old religion had failed me. I had hung on for years and tried to make it help me, but it had not; and now when I glimpsed this new-old Truth-cure I turned joyfully to its promises. In it I glimpsed something of the freedom from bondage which it presented. I felt so elated I seemed to be treading on air. I had not been happy for so long that it was a wonderful experience.
