When I was eighteen years old. spells of dimness affected my eyesight. I went to a specialist and he treated me for seven years. During this time I was also in an eye clinic for thirteen weeks, but there was no improvement. My sight decreased perceptibly, so that after the expiration of another year I decided to try still another eye clinic. In spite of using all conceivable methods of material treatment and having several operations on both eyes, I found no relief. The cloudiness increased so greatly that shortly after my return from the clinic one eye became almost entirely blind. The other eye had very little vision left, so that, in spite of a cane which I used to feel my way, I got about only with great difficulty. I could not take ways unknown to me unless I was led. All the physicians treating me diagnosed glaucoma and severe cloudiness of the vitreous humor in both eyes, and at my last discharge from the eye clinic I was told that my trouble was incurable.
All hope of getting a healing in this way was destroyed, and I returned home with a firm determination to give up all medical treatment. In my great need I remembered the healing of the blind by Jesus. My one prayer was, May God show me the way in which I can obtain healing. A considerable time elapsed, and then one day a friend told me of Christian Science. He related his brother's wonderful healing of cancer of the brain, and recommended that I too turn to Christian Science for healing. At first, however, I was very skeptical, so I did not at once ask for the help of a practitioner. Only after several articles from Der Herold had been read aloud to me did I perceive that this way had been shown me by God. and that my prayer was answered.
I asked a Christian Science practitioner for help, which was very lovingly given me. I was brought into contact with friends and adherents of Christian Science who willingly and frequently read to me from the periodicals and from the textbook by Mrs. Eddy, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Since I could not carry on any business, I found time enough to ponder what I had heard and to digest it. It took much patience and love on the part of all those who stood by me with selfless helpfulness, until little by little one false belief after another disappeared and I saw somewhat that God is All-in-all. Mrs. Eddy quotes in the textbook (p. 96), "The darkest hour precedes the dawn." I myself have experienced the truth of these words. I shall never forget the moment when the light came to me, and an indescribable happiness and the sure conviction of the divine all power and all-presence came over me.
