Although given every advantage that education, beautiful surroundings, and religious teaching could offer, I was still, after more than thirty years, groping for a satisfying concept of life, one conforming with the teachings of Christ Jesus.
In the summer of 1925 my prayer was answered. I started on a five weeks' Atlantic voyage, and on board ship I met someone who proved to be a Christian Scientist. This one discerned my need, and patiently and gently led me to listen to something of the truth, as taught in Christian Science, and finally lent me a copy of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. From the opening lines the purity and scientific certainty of its statements convinced me that this was the truth for which I had been seeking. By the end of the voyage I had made the decision—to me a very momentous one—to leave the church in which I had been brought up and go on in Christian Science. There has never been one moment's regret.
It was a time of great joy, and healings were immediately experienced. I became physically much more active, and my eyes, which had given me much trouble since childhood, were permanently healed of all trace of soreness or strain. Worry lessened considerably. A lethargy or difficulty in getting up in good time in the morning was wholly overcome. The tendency to constant colds, rheumatics, and an almost chronic cough, which caused great weakness, left me the first winter. There have been instantaneous healings of boils and influenza. Through her manifestation of real mother-love, the first practitioner I met broke down a hardness and resentment that had grown in me from the time of a sudden grief I had experienced many years before. Three summers ago nervous prostration, following a series of sunstrokes, was healed on my being reminded by a loving friend that sun is "the symbol of Soul governing man" (ibid., p. 595), and can only bless. There has been no fear of the sun since.
