"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," Jesus said. It is with humility and gratitude that I testify to my own awakening to the truth.
As a child I had a severe case of typhoid fever, which left me in very poor health. I took medicines continually and finally suffered a nervous breakdown which kept me away from my teaching position for several months. Much of the time thereafter I spent in bed, in almost unendurable pain with a back ailment which threatened invalidism. I was in a confused state of self-seeking, fear, and discouragement.
A relative at last revealed to me that she had found help in Christian Science. She said simply, "There really is something to it." So I bought a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. It was six years later, however, after I had lost faith in one material remedy after another and had suffered more, that my hope in this book was quickened, and I was able to read it understandingly for the first time. This came about after I had again appealed to the relative for help and she had sent me lists of references for study. As I began reading this time, it was as if a light illuminated the pages. Never before had anything become so precious in its answer to my need. I forgot the references and just read hour by hour, finally turning back to the first of the book, intent on following every word of it. As I read the chapter on Prayer, I realized suddenly, as through a revelation, that I knew for the first time how to pray. For many years I had been subject to periods of severe sick headache, and the next morning after I had read this chapter with such gratifying illumination, I awoke with the old trouble. I at once applied what I had learned through my reading, and all sense of pain vanished instantaneously.
