I applied for class instruction in Christian Science during the same year in which I was married. As I had only two weeks' vacation, I gave up the opportunity to have a honeymoon so that I might spend the time in class. This step mightily blessed me. I can never be grateful enough for the pure and practical teaching given in class. The fact that Mrs. Eddy, through the Manual of The Mother Church, made it possible for us to avail ourselves of this privilege is but another of the innumerable illustrations of her great love for humanity.
Again and again in the more than thirty years that have intervened since I went through class, my friends and acquaintances have said, "You are the one person I know who has no problems." The revelation that came through class instruction gave me such a joyous sense of man's oneness, or unity, with God that whatever the difficulties have been, they have not taken away my God-given joy. Problems became opportunities to prove more convincingly the power of Christian Science.
The number of difficulties encountered have been amazingly few. Through the application of Christian Science I have been helped in having four children and in caring for them. Broken bones, abscessed ears, which caused temporary deafness, impetigo, measles, whooping cough, and influenza were so quickly healed that in later years the children could scarcely remember them. One of the children never missed a day at school due to illness.
The joyous sense of God's presence sustained and preserved me during the years of World War II, when our two sons were in active service. I remember one testing time after I received an airmail letter from one of them stating that he was being flown from France to a hospital in England. I turned to the Bible and to Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy for help and healing. The thought came to telegraph to the Christian Science Camp Welfare Activities Department of The Mother Church. I shall never forget the sense of peace that came to me with that decision. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for this department of The Mother Church which was prepared to meet the human need. Within two days I had a cabled reply that a Christian Science practitioner had visited our son and was helping him. The testimony of his healing appeared later in the Christian Science Sentinel for September 11, 1948.
Christian Science has directed and sustained me in a business which is complex and diverse and for which I had had no previous training. Through the application of the Principle that is Love, I have been enabled to bless others in numerous and unpredicted ways. At one time it appeared that the entire business would be wiped out. It was necessary to install a particular kind of sand filter to purify our water supply. I could find no one that knew how to build this filter, and correct information was almost impossible to obtain. Moreover, the installation had to have the approval of the health department, and every design we submitted was rejected.
I was quite fearful until I read Joseph Armstrong's inspiring book, "The Mother Church," telling of the building of the Original Edifice. This book refortified my faith and trust in God. Almost immediately from an unexpected source the necessary information became available. We started building the filter without approval of the design. Had we not started building at that time, due to conditions in the cement industry we could not have completed the work, and our business would have been closed. As it worked out, the health department completely approved the installation, which was most successful.
Reviewing these experiences, I am reminded of Mrs. Eddy's definition of "wilderness" on page 597 of Science and Health. How true it is that as we joyously press on through "loneliness; doubt; darkness," we inevitably come to "the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence."— Buffalo, New York.
