About twenty years ago I was taken ill with pneumonia and pleurisy. At the same time a heart ailment from which I had suffered earlier became so aggravated that the doctor gave his opinion that I had not long to live. I was too weak to be taken to a hospital, and so a nurse was engaged to care for me at home. After the doctor had said he could do no more for me, the nurse asked me whether she might call a Christian Science practitioner to help me.
Because I had always been a church member in good standing, the pastor of the church I attended often came to see me and tried to comfort me with the words from the Bible, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth" (Hebr. 12:6). But these words made me still more fearful, and I did not want to hear anything more of God. I could not believe that I was sinful or needed to be constantly chastised. My one desire was to die; I was too tired to live.
However, I gave the nurse permission to send for the practitioner, but I closed my eyes in self-defense when the latter came into the room. Quietly she sat down beside my bed; and when, in surprise, I did look at her, I felt that I should like her to stay a little longer. I can recall nothing else except that my wish to die left me suddenly and that I soon felt better. No one besides the nurse, whom I was soon able to dismiss, knew of this visit, and apparently I forgot the experience.
