In 1975, the centenary year of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, an optician told me, after long and repeated examinations, that he thought I had a very serious eye disease, which would render me blind in both eyes. Both he, and the doctor whom it was his professional duty to inform, each highly respected in the community, showed genuine concern for my future. I told both optician and doctor frankly that I was a Christian Scientist and would have Christian Science treatment only, which I knew could heal me. At first, neither found this acceptable, saying that only medical treatment had any hope of arresting this disease, and then only if caught early. I declined, thanked them, and went home.
There was intense fear for me to overcome, but about this time I read the text of a Christian Science lecture printed in The Christian Science Monitor, in which the lecturer said that once, when facing a serious medical verdict, she had decided to read Science and Health from beginning to end. She was healed. And I, in my extremity, decided to do this too. First I read the chapter "Fruitage," at the end of the book, where several cases of defective eyesight are recorded as healed through reading the textbook alone. I thought that if these testifiers could understand and be healed by reading the book, then I could too. I started reading it slowly and thoughtfully from the beginning, several pages a day, praying all the time to understand what I read.
After two weeks I went to see a Christian Science practitioner and asked for Christian Science treatment. I told her I felt so much like Solomon, who asked God for understanding, that I had so little understanding, and I longed more than anything else for understanding.
