In September, 1900, after having spent the summer almost...

J. D. G. K.

In September, 1900, after having spent the summer almost in seclusion on a fruit ranch in western Colorado, I started to my home in the East. For nearly two years I had been traveling, searching diligently for a location where I might regain my lost health. Overwork had brought on nervous prostration, and my sufferings were intense.

It was with a feeling of bitter disappointment that I turned my face homeward the morning of this September day. While waiting for the stage which was to convey me to the nearest railroad station, I reviewed the results of this summer's isolation from friends and the expense attached thereto. I could see but little improvement in my condition. I had decided that before leaving the state I would visit an old school friend whom I had not seen for many years.

I had not been in her house an hour before she told me that she had accepted Christian Science. I cannot express my feeling of disgust that she had left the good old orthodox faith in which we had both been so strictly trained, and accepted a belief that I had always looked upon as dangerous and almost sacrilegious. However, on Sunday I went to church with her, not expecting to get any good out of it, but with a desire born of curiosity to see just how that sect worshiped God. All the week I could scarcely think or talk of anything but my friend's foolish departure from the old faith. I did my best to prove to her that she had not Bible authority for her views.

When she said good-bye at the close of that ten days' visit, she asked me to open my eyes to the suffering and sadness that I was sure to see around me on my long journey home, and then to think back to the quiet little service I had attended the Sunday before; to remember the bright, happy, healthful faces I had seen there, and that not one of all that congregation had said, "I am sick," or "I have a cold," headache, or sore throat.

I had ample opportunity before reaching home to compare my own sickly beliefs with the understanding of those people in that little church. I had never before realized that the world was so in need of the healing power of Love. I soon discovered that I had left behind me the great fear that had been a part of my diseased belief. I had suffered untold agonies with the feeling that some one or some thing from behind would spring upon me. I could not bear to be left in a room alone after dark, even with a light. I discovered that this fear had left me.

After returning home my friend sent me from time to time copies of the Sentinel, and in every letter urged me to procure a copy of Science and Health. This I did not do till March of the following year. After it came I read it several times through before I could make up my mind to study it in an unprejudiced manner. One of the first things that appealed to me was the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer. I had for years been battling with myself because I found it impossible to forgive one who had done me a great wrong, and when I read "and divine Love is reflected in love," I could see so plainly that my attempts to follow Christ had been in vain without this divine reflection.

One thing that at first was very hard to accept was that the Bible taught universal salvation. It seemed to me that the everlasting punishment of the wicked stared at me from every page, and like many another I thought that I could see imminent danger to mankind in any other belief. But finally it was revealed to me that the great need of the world was to see the unreality of happiness that was in any way connected with material beliefs, and that the crying need of humanity was to come to an understanding of the only real source of happiness, and now my heart goes out with such yearning love and prayer for those who are so blindly seeking happiness in the unrealities of matter, and bearing the burdens of disappointment and misery resulting therefrom.

It is only one year since I laid aside my prejudice sufficiently to study Science and Health intelligently, and I wish I could tell everybody of the health and peace that have come to me. When I look back to the old life with its burdens and pains, and especially its unrest, and compare it with the peace and love for mankind that fills my consciousness to-day, I can but say truly "the kingdom of heaven is within you."

And what can I say of our Leader who has taught me how to "drop my burdens at His feet and bear a song away." My humble appreciation of it all and my heart's deepest reverence shown in a life devoted to the endeavor to lead my fellow-men to the Light as she has pointed it out, are all that I can give; and, God helping me, these shall be given.

J. D. G. K., Colorado Springs, Col.

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