When a boy in my teens, I was a member of a Sunday School class in an orthodox church. Each Sunday our teacher selected a chapter from the Bible for us to read aloud. One Sunday the chapter selected concerned the healing of the man at the pool called Bethesda. When we had finished reading, I remember turning to the boy next to me and saying, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if things like that happened today?"
When I was nineteen I learned that such things do happen here and now. My mother was instantaneously healed of an attack of ptomaine poisoning through the work of a Christian Science practitioner. Later I was healed of typhoid fever. My father, because of business failure, had turned to alcohol; he was healed of its use and of a physical and mental breakdown.
After these awakening experiences, which proved God to be an ever-present help, my mother became an active member of the Christian Science Society in the city in which we lived. My father also took up the study of Christian Science and became a member of the society.
