Article September 7, 1899 Issue

How I was Led into Christian Science

WILLIS D. MCKINSTRY

BY WILLIS D. MCKINSTRY.

Prior to the year 1893 my greatest desire was to be an optician, but circumstances were such that I could not prepare myself to enter into this business. With the beginning of the above year I secured a position for two years, which gave me time to study. At the time I began the study of optics, my wife began to investigate Christian Science. At first I attended church with her, but found a stumbling-block when the minister said there was no intelligence in matter. After this I attended services very little, but my wife continued her search for the Truth. When the time arrived for me to engage in the work of an optician, the question of location had to be decided. A large optical company in New York recommended a city in the extreme South. As our home had always been in the North, we thought it best for me to take a trip and look the field over before deciding. My wife gave me the names of some Scientists she had taken from the Journal, requesting me to call upon them, for if she were to go into a land among strangers, she felt they would be her friends.

When I arrived at my destination, I made enquiry as to these Scientists and found they lived only a block away, and that there were Scientists stopping at the same place I was. I met them all several times, and felt a strong friendship for them. The location for my business was all that had been recommended. I at once decided to make it my future home, and made arrangements to return in about a month. I did so, arriving there on a Saturday evening. Sunday morning, while out walking, the thought came, "Call on Mr. S., the Scientist." When I arrived at this home I found a card on the door saying they were attending Sunday School. I continued my walk, and after walking for some time I caught sight of card which read, "Christian Science Sunday School up-stairs," so up I went as though I had always been a regular attendant, meeting the same friends, who welcomed me as none but Scientists can welcome. Mr. and Mrs. S. invited me to come to the evening meeting at their home. After arranging my office I was really glad when the evening came, as I had a desire again to meet my new friends. This first evening spent with them will ever be remembered, such peace and love as was manifested can never be forgotten. Before leaving, Mrs. S. asked if I had Science and Health with me; as I had not, she offered to loan me one; I really did not care for it but did not like to refuse, so took it to my room. The next evening I picked it up and read for two hours, such a perfect peace and rest I had never experienced before. I had tried to read Science and Health at home, but could not become interested in it. When Sunday came I was ready for Sunday School. It was six weeks before my family came, and as I had never been away from them more than two weeks at a time, I became very lonely. I found this sense of loneliness would vanish whenever I read Science and Health, leaving a great peace and happiness, and it was this that led me to accept Christian Science. While reading this blessed book of Truth, I was healed of a chronic case of nasal catarrh. I had tried many remedies and specialists, all with the same result, no cure. The impersonal healer did the work; I was unconscious of the healing. I had used tobacco for about fifteen years, this habit was also destroyed unconsciously, for I knew not when I quit smoking. At first the thought never came to me that Christian Science would interfere with my business. In a few months the errors which I wrote in my advertisements began to be uncovered to me.

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