Christian Science was first presented in our home when I was a child of ten. My father had been ill with rheumatism for a number of years, suffering so much pain that he spent many nights in a chair before the fire under the influence of a drug. At one time a student of Christian Science staying in the home talked to him and gave him some literature to read. But at that particular time he was trying a new medical compound which he felt relieved him. Twenty months later, however, he experienced a return of the malady and a physician administered the same compound. My father did not improve but rather grew worse, becoming paralyzed from the waist down. He was taken to a hospital, and the case was variously diagnosed. A number of doctors and specialists said that they could do nothing for him. He was brought home, and at the end of another year he could barely get about on crutches with a brace on one leg, which seemed to be wasting away. On the average of twice a day morphine was administered for severe pain, and a desire for this also was developing. His stomach had become so upset that he was kept on a strict diet.
At this depressing stage Christian Science was again presented. This time it was by a friend whose wife was a practitioner. Consent for treatment was given, the text-book and a Christian Science Quarterly were purchased, and the reading of the Lesson-Sermon was begun. He understood he was to take no medicine. There was immediate improvement. First he was healed of severe pain, then of the stomach disorder, so that he could eat and enjoy everything, and lastly, all desire for the drug left him. He was gradually able to take off the brace, the crutches were replaced by two canes, and later one of these was discarded.
The regaining of his ability to walk in the latter phase of the healing described above has always been a source of inspiration to me. One Sunday he asked me to read the Lesson-Sermon with him. The subject that week was "Soul and Body." We read one section and I asked questions which he answered the best he could. While he was talking, his thought was so uplifted that he said he felt he could walk, and he did. He walked back and forth through the house as a child first learning. Our gratitude was unbounded. The next Sunday I began attending the Christian Science Sunday School, and I enjoyed this wonderful privilege for eight years. Shortly afterwards my younger sister also enrolled and attended until reaching the age limit.
