Looking back to the years before I knew of Christian Science, and comparing them with the ten or twelve years that have succeeded them, during which the study and application of this Science have brought to me a liberation, activity, and happiness undreamed of before, I can say with the Psalmist that God has "brought me up . . . out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." The worst feature of my experience when Christian Science thus came to me, was that I had believed myself injured by another's treatment of me and had abandoned myself to returning evil for evil; and the misery of hatred poisoned everything in my life. With the first ray of Christian Science, however, this seemingly impenetrable wall of evil began to dissolve into its native nothingness; though not till about two years later was the lesson fully learned that true forgiveness cannot retain even the memory of an injury, and that the only right view of man is that which sees him as the spontaneous reflection of divine Love. This change of thought brought to me a happiness never before dreamed of, and a measure of liberation to many concerned who knew nothing of what had wrought the change.
Before hearing of Christian Science I had had recurrent attacks of appendicitis, and it was supposed that when next an attack occurred it would have to be met by a surgical operation; however, when the symptoms again appeared, I asked a Christian Science practitioner at once for help, and in one treatment this tendency was healed, not only for the time, but permanently. Years later, similar symptoms appeared, but by recognizing them as a suggestion of reversal, with no foundation in fact, I was able to dismiss them in a few moments.
At another time I fell on my knee and injured it so severely that in a few hours it had swollen and become stiff. I telephoned to a practitioner, and was very much comforted by her assurance that "accidents are unknown to God," as Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 424). This was late one evening; the next morning I had to catch an early train out of town, and rejoiced to find that my knee was normal and there was no trace of pain in walking.
