Christian Science was first presented to my mother in 1917; and despite strong opposition within the family, she did her utmost to interest her children in its explanation of the Bible truths and the accounts therein of spiritual healing. During school years and subsequently at a university, I could not reconcile what I thought I knew of Christian Science with the apparently indisputable evidence of materialism and evil which loomed up as reality in all spheres of human existence.
I reacted sharply to the evident hopelessness of aspects of life around me and lost all desire to live in accordance with any standard at all. By the end of the second of three years at the university I had found materialism to be the useless "broken cisterns" referred to in the Bible, book of Jeremiah (2:13), had completely lost all purpose in existence, and was mentally and physically very sick.
At that stage I remembered that in my baggage was a copy of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, always carried with me in deference to my mother but unread for many years. I began to read it and continued to do so at every opportunity, fascinated, and feeling certain that within its pages I had found a satisfying answer to life's "unsolvable" problems. Attendance at a Christian Science lecture then given in the town convinced me that this was the case.
