I was eight years old when I was healed of scarlet fever through the prayer of a Christian Science practitioner. When the doctors arrived to place our home under quarantine, they found no vestige of the disease.
Shortly afterward, I enrolled in the Christian Science Sunday School. My mother didn't understand this Science, and felt that I was too interested in it. She sent me to a boarding school with only my Bible, and hid my copy of Science and Health, which I found several years later. My first year at college I joined The Mother Church and the Christian Science college organization at the school. The organization brought me helpful association with other young Scientists, and before long I met a woman whose devotion and love for this Science changed the course of my life. Her effective aid resulted in many healings of different kinds, and a desire to serve the Cause of Christian Science became preeminent in me.
But I wondered what I'd do if ever I was faced with a serious physical problem. Shortly thereafter I became very ill, and my mother was especially alarmed because she said she had seen a neighbor with a similar condition pass on in two weeks. She insisted that I see a doctor. I consented under the condition that once the illness was diagnosed she would allow me to rely on Christian Science for healing.
