I had the great privilege of being brought up in a home in which Christian Science had been accepted as the truth before I was born. My eldest brother, then a child, lay gravely ill with pneumonia. My mother had become interested in Science before she married, but my father was antagonistic to it. However, in this extremity, when all material means had failed, Christian Science treatment was called for, and a wonderful healing followed. My father became a devoted Christian Scientist, and no material remedies were used in our home after this experience.
However, after I married and left home, I became satisfied with a life which had no time for Christian Science. I thought that smoking cigarettes gave me real pleasure, and I saw no reason why I should give them up. But when our daughter was about five years old she began to have trouble with one of her eyes. This trouble was very painful and disfiguring; but because I had seemed to drift so far from the teachings of Christian Science, I felt I could not call upon it for help.
When the condition grew worse I took her to an eye specialist, who diagnosed it as ulcers behind the eye. After many weary months of medical treatment with no beneficial result, I was told she would have to wear glasses permanently. Like the prodigal son, I began to long for something better, which in my heart I had always known was to be found in God alone.
