One of the things I am most grateful for is that early in my experience I was forced to use what little I knew of Christian Science. I had been studying for little more than a year when my husband felt led to go to Boston to seek healing for a disease considered serious. We were then living on a ranch in western Texas, and since there were two small children in the family needing my care, it was necessary for me to remain there.
There was no one on the ranch or near by interested in Christian Science, and my mother, who opposed it bitterly at this time, came to stay with me for a while. One day the baby, four weeks old, became quite ill, and much fear was expressed over his condition by those of the household. I tried as best I knew how to know the truth, as taught in Christian Science. I kept repeating "the scientific statement of being" (Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, p. 468), the twenty-third Psalm, and the Lord's Prayer, and read from Science and Health as often as possible, but in the late afternoon the baby seemed worse. I refused to call on a doctor, as I was being urged to do, and instead attempted to telephone a Christian Science practitioner in a distant city, but was unsuccessful. I knew I had to realize God's presence and His power at once, for the baby seemed to be passing on. I took him into a room by myself and declared aloud that he was, in reality, God's child, that he was in God's care, not mine, and that I would leave him where he belonged. The words of a hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 382) came to me, the first stanza of which is as follows:
What is thy birthright, man,
Child of the perfect One;
What is thy Father's plan
For His beloved son?
