Christian Science was first mentioned in our home in my early teens, but as I did not know where or how to obtain further information, the subject was dropped. A few months later, when my mother was preparing to undergo an operation which the physicians said would prove fatal, a telegram was received from a relative asking her to go to the person mentioned in the telegram. That person proved to be a Christian Science practitioner. She was healed in a short time of tubercular growths, chronic heart, liver, and kidney trouble.
At that time I was in great need of help, as I was recuperating from a long siege of fever which had left me a nervous wreck. I entered school in the fall, but suffered from insomnia to such an extent that it seemed impossible to go on. One night when I could not sleep, the thought came to me to get up and read from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I read and reread the chapter on Prayer, and such a sense of peace came that I was able to sleep the rest of the night. That was the last of the trouble.
Although I attended Sunday school part of the time, I argued that my school work must necessarily come first, and that I did not have time to study the Lesson-Sermons daily. The result was that the completion of my school work found me in very poor health. For five years I suffered from such severe attacks of illness that I could not do anything which required physical exertion. Although I had Christian Science treatment, the attacks came on more frequently, lasted longer, and were more severe. During the last spell I became unconscious and seemed to be passing on. My mother felt that there was not time to call a practitioner, and realized that the affirmation of man's true existence must be made at once. She said that she turned away from the bed, and she must have turned away from the material body in thought too, for in a few minutes she realized I was speaking. Upon coming closer, she discovered that I was feebly trying to sing one of our hymns. My appendix broke, and with it complete relief from suffering was experienced. I was up the next day and returned to work in two or three days. Indigestion, liver trouble, and other ailments were healed at the same time.
