Article May 16, 1908 Issue

HOW AND WHY I BECAME A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST

Margaret Beecher White

New York American

I pause, look back, and mentally follow my wanderings through many phases of the search for Truth up to the time when Christian Science crossed my path. It reminds me of the journey the drop of water takes as it falls from the sky upon a flower—a wind springs up and blows it to the ground, where it sinks and travels through the earth to a spring of water that bubbles it up into a brook. The swift-running brook joins the river, which carries it through forest and valley to the ocean, and there it ebbs and flows with the tide until some warm, bright sunny day a sun's ray beckons it up to the sky. So I journeyed through the forests and valleys of human philosophy and out on the tide of human doctrines, blown and buffeted about by speculative theories until I was worn, confused, and embittered.

Then I began to question—as many have done before me and as many are doing to-day—"Is there a God after all?" The inconsistency of the Bible from the material view-point, the only one I knew, led me to close the book and stow it with others equally useless. My religion did not satisfy me. It did not help to solve the Biblical puzzles, nor was it of use to me in sorrow, sickness, or trouble. None of the promises of Jesus were fulfilled in it. It was mockery to listen to Jesus' teachings and works preached from the pulpit once a week, if they were only meant for this particular time and place. I attended churches of other denominations, but only found, as in my own, a theoretical and inconsistent God. So I gave up going to church and took my children out of Sunday School. Either there was no God or He was lost to the present age.

It was at this time, about six years ago, that a friend, suffering from melancholia and extreme nervousness, was discouraged by the failure of materia medica to help her case and turned to me for advice. She was steadily growing worse, would I help her? Laughingly I suggested Christian Science, because there was no physical disorder, and I admitted that nervous troubles might be reached by its treatment. The suggestion was immediately frowned upon. A short time went by, and then suicidal tendencies developed which determined me to act in my own way for her good, as I knew that my friend would follow any line of action if it were mapped out for her by myself.

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