About thirteen years ago a small growth appeared on my neck. At first I paid little attention to it; but as it became larger and quite painful, and manifested conditions made very familiar to me while caring for a dear one who had passed on with what reputable physicians had named cancer, I became filled with intense fear. I am grateful to say, however, that through it all the desire to know more of Christian Science increased, and this longing was all that gave me any peace.
In March, 1926, at a lecture in our church, the lecturer said something like this: What is the duty of a practitioner when called upon for help? It is immediately to commune with the facts of being. Then he went into some detail as to these facts of being. This so impressed me that while I was dressing the inharmonious condition the next morning thoughts like these came to me: Why, this is just a call to duty, to commune with the facts of being, to assert God's perfection—to know and claim it as belonging to yourself and to all mankind, because all are in reality the reflection of perfect God; to refuse to parley longer with error or in any way accept sense-testimony; to do whole-heartedly what the disciples did when they "changed their methods, turned away from material things, and cast their net on the right side," as Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 35), knowing that in assimilating good only can evil be cast out.
So each day as it seemed necessary to see this condition, I sought out more of God's testimony about Himself and His idea, man. I remember especially taking up the definitions of God as found in the chapters "Recapitulation" and "Glossary" in Science and Health, and as I studied each one, I applied it to myself, as God's reflection, as well as to God; for was I not His image and likeness, and He my Father-Mother God? The result was that the inharmony, which had continued for about nine years, disappeared within four months after I began to work in the manner suggested in the lecture.
