My prejudice against Christian Science (about which I had heard adverse criticism, but really knew nothing) was broken down when a relative was healed by Christian Science treatment. Shortly after this I attended for the first time a Sunday morning service held in a hall by a small group of Christian Scientists. Had the Readers used a foreign language, the reading could not have meant less to me. I think I did not understand a sentence that was read. Some time after this I attended one of the Wednesday evening meetings held by this same group of Scientists in a small room in an office building, with not a dozen people present. As before, the reading did not impress me, but during the part of the service devoted to the giving of testimonies I listened happily to a man telling of his own healing by Christian Science and to a woman telling of a child who had been healed of injuries received from a fall. I have never forgotten the joy and peace that were mine in that little Wednesday evening meeting—joy and peace that came with the assurance that God does, in this age, heal the sick. I had been raised to believe that the wonderful healings by Jesus and his disciples were for the sole purpose of proving that Jesus was the Son of God and that such works were impossible in this age.
For several months previous to this happy experience I had been studying new-thought, and I now continued this study under the delusion that it was the same as Christian Science. Then there came a time when I was greatly in need of comfort and healing; and when I attempted to put into use the theories I had read I found that I had indeed built "upon the sand." There was nothing tangible to lay hold of in these theories. Then I went to a Christian Science practitioner for help and began to learn the vast difference between what I had supposed Christian Science to be and what it really is. The healing was not immediate, but the practitioner was never too busy to give me of her time and never unready to explain as best she could the truth about this divine Love which I was seeking.
From that time my attendance at Sunday and Wednesday services was quite regular, and I began to study the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, with the help of the Christian Science Quarterly. For some time I apparently understood little of what I studied, and could see no correlation between the Bible texts and the references from Science and Health. However, about six months after I began this study I one day became aware of the fact that I was completely healed of ingrowing toenails which had troubled me from the time I was about nine years old. Next, my intense fear of dogs began to grow less, as I endeavored to realize the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement (Science and Health, p. 514), "All of God's creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible." More recently I was healed of a diseased and badly swollen tonsil, this healing taking place while I was being treated for another ailment by a practitioner, to whom no mention was made of any trouble with the tonsils.
