The logic and reasonableness of Christian Science appealed to me when I was desperately in need of God. As I read the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, I knew I was beginning to learn self-evident, eternal truths about God. With more earnest study I realized I was being "transformed by the renewing of [my] mind" (Rom. 12:2).
This great awakening from the belief of material life with its accessories of sin and sorrow, sickness and medical methods, of godlessness and hopelessness, came at a time when years of ill-health had brought me close to invalidism. I had been hospitalized seven times and had undergone five surgical operations. I was not in better health because of all this, but far worse and in a state of nervous exhaustion. When I read the Christian Science textbook a condition of impairment of sight was at once healed, and health and vigor became increasingly apparent. Whereas formerly there had been little strength for any tasks, gradually I could do more and more. Today, after twelve years, I can carry on whatever it is necessary for me to do with energy and interest, and my health is splendid.
No greater blessing has come to me than the illumination Christian Science throws upon the Scriptures. As a child I had been given no encouragement to read the Bible, so I knew very little about this book. Before I turned to Christian Science I had no concept whatever of the nature of God; I could not have said what He was or what He meant to me. After reading Science and Health I understood somewhat the nature of God as Life, Truth, and Love, and as Spirit, Soul, Mind, Principle. With my first applications of its rules I could say, "There is a God, here and now; a God of love and of infinite power." And the Bible, with its spiritual message of hope for mankind, became a book of promise to me. It soon became my habit to go to it when in distress, with full expectancy of finding a solution to problems.
