Twenty years ago my family and I thought the end was very near for me, after I had suffered nearly a lifetime of weakness and misery culminating in consumption of the blood. When the doctors could do no more, we tried the methods of semimetaphysical systems with no improvement, and at last my mother called in a Christian Science practitioner. I was startled out of my torpor when, on leaving, this loving woman said, "I shall expect to see you at my office tomorrow." I was not there the next day, but the day after that I dressed and went with my mother to the practitioner's office, walking up and down two long flights of stairs. Complete freedom from the outstanding difficulty was not realized for several years, however, but many other troubles, physical and of disposition, vanished in the meantime. Constipation, from which I had always suffered and for which I had been treated daily with material means, departed at once without specific work in Science. I was healed of a tendency to continual colds and serious sore throat; and during recent years of an ugly and painful growth on my neck, which disappeared in about six weeks as the result of the splendid work of a practitioner.
In the first years of my interest in Christian Science, periods of discouragement tempted me very often because I was unable to participate in the activities of other young people; but gradually I gained an understanding and love of the truth which was and is a constant and consistent rebuke to the arguments of fear, discouragement, self-will, self-love. My first steps were so well instructed, and my early training in a Christian Science Sunday School so valuable, that I never cease to be grateful for this foundation work. The blessing of class instruction, which was mine several years ago, has also been of immeasurable help.
I am so thankful that there are passages from the Scriptures and the writings of our Leader which always establish themselves in my consciousness in difficult situations, eventually relegating the error to its native nothingness.
