Shortly after I was married, I found myself very much in need of a cure for hay fever, which had plagued me for several summers. Remedies I had used gave me no relief. I had heard of Christian Science, but in my ignorance I felt satisfied with my religious position and thought that Science was not for me. However, my wife's mother had had Christian Science treatment for a difficulty the doctors had pronounced incurable, and about the time of our marriage we had seen her healing take place. My need for help caused my wife and me to consider Science again. I remember my wife's saying: "Let us be fair. Let's try Christian Science for a year. It can't hurt you, and maybe it will help!"
We bought a copy of the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and began our investigation of what has become the most important thing in our lives. A Christian Science practitioner in the city to which we had moved at the time of our marriage helped me greatly that summer. When the practitioner asked me to study the true account of creation contained in the first chapter of Genesis and to realize that my true selfhood is that of the man mentioned there, I was receptive, because the Bible had always been a book much loved and read in the home of my maternal grandparents, in which I had been reared.
This was the beginning of my growing understanding that man is not material but spiritual. Continued study of the textbook strengthened my faith in God, and in the truth of man as His pure, spiritual image and likeness. It was pointed out to me that flowers, including those to which I had believed I was allergic, gave hints of the real beauty and harmony of God, Spirit. As I began to see more clearly my real being, I lost the belief that these flowers had power to disturb me. During this time, other irritating and emotional traits of character were uncovered and erased.
