One of the greatest pleasures of my life is to tell the story of God's unfailing care. Words alone can never express my gratitude, but together with my earnest endeavor to be more Christlike, they can do much.
I was raised in an atmosphere of popular theology and was taught that God does everything for some good. Having been frail from babyhood, I was not able to play as my friends did and was confined to the house the greater part of the time. This made me very resentful; but when I complained, I was told that I must be patient, as God was doing it for some good. The consequence was that I very plainly said, "I hate Him."
In 1900 I was taken to a western climate because it seemed that I had but a short time to live. While I was there, a barber who came to shave me told me of Christian Science. In a whisper I told him that I hoped God was satisfied with the way He had treated me. He said to me in substance: Would you accuse your heavenly Father of something you would not accuse your earthly father of doing? God is Love, and it is His will that you be well. He told me about a Father-Mother God who loved me more than my human father and mother could, and this awakened a great hope in me. He lent us his copy of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and called a practitioner for me. I might just as well have heard the book read in Greek, for all I understood it at first. However, I was healed and became very much interested in its study.
