One weekend when I was a student at a university in London, I visited my parents, who lived an hour away by bus. Returning on the bus that Sunday evening, I was feeling extremely unwell with flu-like symptoms, including a bad cough.
When I arrived back at the college, I barely managed to get to my room. I was able to telephone my Sunday School teacher, who was a Christian Science practitioner, and request her prayerful help. She gave me some inspiring thoughts, and I asked what truths I could keep in mind to counter the cough. She said, “Error has no voice and cannot make itself heard.” This was really helpful and has stayed with me all these years.
I got into bed, and I couldn’t do much but lie there. After a day or so, I began to think I should make some effort of my own and not just lean on the practitioner’s metaphysical treatment for me. I opened my copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy and began reading at random. When I got to “the scientific statement of being” on page 468, I read it through over and over. It begins: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.”
