I began the study of Christian Science almost accidentally, so it seemed at the time, but actually my introduction to Science was, as I realized later, an answer to my agonized prayer for help. I was a young man at the time, newly married, and working hard to support a growing family. Because of my limited education and lack of any special training, the only adequate, steady work I could find was heavy labor in factories and steel mills around Chicago. I was becoming very discouraged with my hard lot and its slight prospects for improvement, and I prayed often as I searched for a better job.
One day on my way home from work I picked up a copy of the Christian Science Sentinel from a sample literature distribution box in the railway station. I don't recall now just what I read in that periodical that appealed to me, but I continued to read the sample literature and later borrowed a copy of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy from the local Christian Science Reading Room. I began reading this book very eagerly, because for the first time in my life I was finding satisfactory answers to a number of questions about God and man and my own identity, questions which, until then, had greatly puzzled me. Although I had been taught to read and love the Bible by a very prayerful mother, yet its meanings and promises had remained doubtful and obscure to me. It was not long before I had the opportunity to test these promises in the light that Christian Science was now giving me.
Since early childhood I had suffered every winter from tonsillitis and a variety of respiratory ailments, including chronic catarrh. Now healing of these and other ailments came quickly and permanently. Our infant son was the first to be healed. Through the work of a Christian Science practitioner he was healed of a very unsightly form of eczema which had spread over much of his body. To our great joy he was completely healed in less than a week. Later I was healed, with the help of the same practitioner, of a high fever and cold. I had gone to bed feeling very ill and awoke a few hours later completely well. At about the same time, while attending a Christian Science lecture, I was healed of the last attack of tonsillitis I ever had. My health, as well as that of my wife and children, continued to improve; I found better and more harmonious employment, which was steady throughout the depression years.
