Many years have passed since first I picked up the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy out of curiosity to see what it might contain. I had always been a great lover of books, and when I saw a certain person carrying a small black book around, I did not rest until I had asked to see the book. It was lent to me for an hour or so, once or twice, and then the owner lovingly offered to get me a used copy. That was about 1904, and since then I have never been without a copy, nor have I ceased to bless the day when Christian Science came into my life.
I attended church and read the periodicals for several years after that, and found Christian Science a most satisfying religion; but I did not join a church until 1911. Like many others, I thought that joining a church would bring one to a haven of rest; but, also like other Scientists, I found that my work of demonstrating the truth had just begun; for from that time on I had to prove every statement that I claimed to have learned. It took years to eliminate some of the effects of wrong thinking, because I did not see that the cause lay principally in my own thought.
My first outstanding healing was of sciatica. The difficulty yielded quickly to treatment; and for a while all was well again, except that I was troubled with sick headaches. As I had always tolerated them as a belief of overwork as well as heredity, they were slow to leave me permanently, though they always yielded quickly to treatment at the time. I carried many burdens, mostly belonging to other people; and it was many years before I learned that I could not steady another's ark, that salvation was an individual problem and must be regarded as such. I was employed in an office of one of the grain exchanges, and in that line of work came to have a wrong concept of money. It seemed to me that a well-filled purse was the source of supply. As I was then situated it did not seem that lack could touch me, but it did. I saw all material supply wiped out, and I had to learn that God alone was my source of abundant supply and that while all else might fail, He never could.
