When I was twelve years old, I began to think about God and mankind. What led to this was an illness of my mother. I rebelled strongly against a God that sends sickness and threatens to take mothers away from their children; it seemed unjust to me. I did not want to believe in such a "God of Thunder." This protest, which I voiced aloud to the evening sky, suddenly took away all fear. And when I returned home, my mother had improved.
I had not yet learned anything about Mrs. Eddy's wonderful discovery. Three years later I first heard of Christian Science, which teaches God is the divine Principle, Love. Then I knew that this was the religion I had been yearning for. My mother had been given some copies of The Herald of Christian Science (German Edition), and we read them eagerly. This new teaching was especially uplifting for my mother, who was to undergo a surgical operation. She read the periodicals every free minute and, after a few days, declared radiantly, "I am well and no longer need a doctor." The entire family was astonished; it seemed a miracle. The fretting, troubled mother had become a radiant, happy person, full of energy and enterprise. She was convinced she had been fully healed, she always said, because "I clearly realized two things in reading these periodicals, namely the demand (Ex. 20:3), 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and (Mark 12:31), 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'" She said further, "In Mrs. Eddy's writings it is continually emphasized that God is only good and knows no suffering. And if this is so, then I do not have to suffer." The healing proved to be permanent.
Her healing and the gratifying knowledge of a God who is Love awoke in me the desire to learn more of this religion. With my father's permission, I left my former church and joined a group of Christian Scientists. I was immediately entrusted with ushering and literature distribution, which I performed with great zeal. As a Sunday School pupil, I learned Mrs. Eddy's hymns in English and in German and had a special love for them. It was a happy time.
