Christian Science has so entirely changed my life in the thirteen years I have been studying it that it seems almost impossible to find words to express all that it means to me. In July, 1915, after being ill for nearly a year, I was told by our family physician and a specialist to whom he sent me that I had lung and heart trouble, and that there was little or no hope of recovery. Two years before this I had given up teaching because three oculists told me I was losing my eyesight. I suffered constant pain in my eyes, wore dark glasses constantly, and could not sew or read for more than ten minutes at a time. The day the specialist told me he could do nothing for me I purchased a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and began reading it. At that time I could not climb stairs or walk any distance without having a fainting or coughing spell that would leave me exhausted for hours. Within three weeks I had improved so much that I could visit the World's Fair in San Francisco; and after the first day I suffered no ill effects from constant walking and climbing stairs.
My eyes have never given me any trouble since the hour I began reading Science and Health, although I did not stop wearing glasses till about two months afterwards, when I called upon a practitioner for help for other troubles. The improvement was rapid, and at the end of the year I was in better health than ever before. Hay fever and constant colds disappeared before the light of this truth, without any special attention. Before I began to study Christian Science, it was an effort for me to speak loud enough to be heard across an ordinary room, on account of throat trouble. Since then I have finished a three-year term as Reader in a branch church, and am told that my voice could be heard clearly in every part of the auditorium. I have had instantaneous healings of appendicitis, blood poisoning, influenza, a small broken bone, and many other ailments. Class instruction has been a wonderful privilege, giving me the understanding necessary to help others as well as myself.
Several years ago a member of the family I was staying with at the time became quite ill, and in a few days an eruption appeared. In accordance with the law a health officer was called, and he immediately pronounced it smallpox. We were placed in quarantine. I immediately asked a practitioner to work for me, as there seemed to be so much fear manifested, and I offered to care for the one who had the disease. My offer was accepted, an in two weeks, when the child was ready to be let out of quarantine, two other members of the household came down with it. For nearly two weeks more I did whatever was necessary to be done. Once during this time, after I had been four days and nights without sleep, I wired the practitioner asking for special help, as I did not seem to be able to keep up any longer. By four o'clock that afternoon I felt as refreshed as if I had never lost an hour of sleep, and this without any rest during the day. About a week later a slight eruption appeared on my face after about eight hours of fever. I had manifested none of the symptoms the others had, no loss of appetite, only a great sense of weariness. I spent only from four o'clock in the afternoon to ten the next morning in bed. After that I was about my work as usual. The health officer who came out when a new case was reported said that my case was so slight as to be hardly worth reporting, and that I would be ready to be out as soon as the others were.
