Class instruction in Christian Science strengthened my desire to heal ills by prayer alone. I had been raised in Science. As a boy, one of my first healings occurred this way. Some of the older boys had a habit of playing with kitchen matches, holding the match on the striker part of the box and flicking it with the other finger at a target. This time the target happened to be me. The lighted match entered my eye and burned my eyelashes and brow, sealing the lids together. I went home in a lot of pain and fear. My mother covered my eye with a cloth and telephoned a Christian Science practitioner. Within a few days my eye was back to normal. During the days the healing was progressing, there was absolutely no pain. I had been completely healed by prayer, with perfect vision restored.
The following year my schoolteacher sent me to the nurse's office because she suspected I had a communicable disease. The nurse sent me home with a note to my mother, and in compliance with the law, Mother called in a doctor. He diagnosed smallpox, and our house was quarantined. A practitioner was called who prayed for me. No one else in the family caught the disease, and I was not uncomfortable. In a few weeks I was healed. The sores had dried up; my skin was free of any blemish.
I have felt the influence of Science all my life. I look back on the freedom I enjoyed, and in most instances lack of fear.
