When I was six years old, an affliction came upon me...

When I was six years old, an affliction came upon me which the physicians said had been caused by a diseased cow's milk. It involved indigestion, extreme constipation, and convulsions which brought unconsciousness. I suffered much and was a great care to my parents till I was eleven years old, when the doctor said I had outgrown my trouble. When I was nineteen years of age a terrible attack of rheumatism kept me on my back for thirteen weeks. When I recovered I found myself susceptible to inflamed joints at the slightest provocation, and always through the winter I suffered from swollen feet, which made walking painful. There was also a weakness of the system, not noticeable outwardly but apperently very real to me, which made me afraid of certain kinds of food and all kinds of damp weather. Two years later I suffered another twelve weeks' siege of the rheumatism, and this left me with nervous indigestion, which defied all the efforts of several good physicians. The rheumatism I expected to have—under such control as care respecting food and exposure could provide—so long as I lived, for my grandfather had it before me, but I tried every conceivable thing within reach for the nervous indigestion. A superabundance of optimism and nerve, so-called, kept my head above water, but when alone in my room at night my suffering brought the average of misery pretty well up. Many a time have I gone to sleep in utter exhaustion. Only to arise in the morning and begin again the same horrid round. Every meal distressed me. Acidity of such a character that it seemed to be burning a hole through my flesh, would induce a degree of nervousness that in turn increased the acidity. I had charge of an important editorial desk in the offices of a big news association. The work was confining and exacting; it required sharp supervision, quick judgment, and considerable labor, and to me it was a constant strain at high tension. In July, 1901, I collapsed. Pulling myself together, I started for Vermont to recuperate. En route I stopped to see my parents in Saratoga Springs. My mother, who had been a sufferer for eighteen years from blood-poisoning, which the doctors said had been caused by impure virus used in vaccination, and which they were unable to cure, was becoming interested in Christian Science, and she told me something about it.

After six weeks in the mountains I returned to Jersey City feeling quite myself again, but a few weeks at my desk found the old troubles getting in their work once more. The management did not want on their staff a man liable to keel over at any minute, so I was invited to get an outdoor position, which I did. The nervousness was somewhat subdued by the change, but the rheumatism and the indigestion continued to remind me of their existence. The attacks of indigestion again came to be of a violent nature, involving dizziness and an awful feeling of disintegration, as though the particles of my flesh were separating in space. To those who have never suffered from indigestion in its worst form, it is impossible to give any adequate idea of the physical and mental suffering involved. Suffice it to say, only the optimism and "never" heretofore referred to kept me from being a miserable wreck. I tried both schools of medicine, I tried abstinence from medicine, I tried hot water, cold water, physical exercises. Nothing ever had more than a brief effect.

The next spring I visited my parents again. In place of a wasted form and sallow, sunken features, I beheld a mother with bright eyes, pink-tinted cheeks, and a smile of sweet assurance that were dear to see. I returned to Jersey City, bought a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, and started to read it. I had proceeded about forty pages, when one Saturday evening I became conscious of a strange upheaval. It followed the lines of an attack of acute indigestion, but the confusion and misery which accompanied it were more poignant than ever before. Eventually, unable to bear it longer, I went to my room and threw myself on the bed for and hour of torment. That hour suggests the picture of a lost soul struggling frantically with a fire-and-brimstone hell. My optimism and my nerve were gone. I broke down, and with my head buried in the pillow to stifle the sound, I cried like a baby. My wife found me there a little later, and I retired for the night.

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Testimony of Healing
I wish to express my gratitude for Christian Science
July 15, 1905
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