Love and gratitude for Mrs. Eddy, reverence for the Christian Science movement, which she founded, and special appreciation of her establishment of the Christian Science Sunday School, motivate the following testimony.
Christian Science came to me in my early teens. It lifted me from a poverty-stricken state of thought through the enrichment of my spiritual understanding. At the time, I felt that every door through which opportunity could come had been closed. I had been orphaned for several years, during which time I was shifted from one home to another among relatives. Having no settled home, separated from a beloved younger sister, treated with indifference by those around me, I felt unloved and insecure. I was in a constant state of rebellion against severe privation which I felt helpless to correct. Although attending a Protestant Sunday School, I was trained to think of the Bible in literal terms, and so its beautiful passages brought me no real comfort. I entertained a great doubt that God existed, and depression was my usual state of mind.
This whole dismal picture was changed virtually overnight by a visit to a Christian Science Sunday School. On that first Sunday I didn't understand much of the Christian Science Quarterly Lesson-Sermon, but a surge of peacefulness and comfort came to my consciousness. One thing I did know. I had been introduced to a fresh and spiritual way to read the Bible and had been given a hope that this would bring practical answers to my problems. Sunday became a day to look forward to because I could return to this Sunday School. I am grateful to that first teacher, whose spiritual understanding was ever equal to the never-ending questions I brought to her.
