In October, 1917, having for several months spent most...

Lucienne Perrin

In October, 1917, having for several months spent most of my time in bed, being stricken, according to many physicians, with tuberculosis of the lungs, I was suffering a great deal, and every night I thought I should not live until morning. I was in a state of great fear when a pamphlet telling of Mrs. Eddy's healing was brought to me. I read and reread it, and gained some hope that I could be healed in the same way. Moreover, I saw no other resort. The thought that God could bring about the healing improved my condition somewhat; and this enabled the doctor to have me taken South to spend the winter. But there, great weakness, dreadful stiflings, an evident disorder of the heart, painful attacks of enteritis, seemed to be leading me to the grave, when the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, which I had asked for, reached me. I read it without understanding much of it; but one thought became clear to me, telling me that God was giving me life, that I must believe in Him, and deny evil.

I tried feebly to deny that I could no longer walk without falling and without choking; and I left my chaise longue to take a walk of about three quarters of a mile. After that I went out almost every day, thinking of the little I understood in Science and Health. My nights became good. I was not yet strong, but I thought that time would complete the work of healing. During the summer of 1918 I made two long railroad trips, which seemed to weaken me. I no longer did anything with Christian Science, believing that it was sufficient to deny the suffering. I had to go to bed again, and the doctors pronounced the trouble pleurisy. One of them forbade me to leave my bed, and prescribed a severe diet.

After the first day of this diet, I again believed myself to be dying and began to weep. In despair, I asked my mother for Science and Health, which was in the bottom of my trunk. (For a year and a half the physicians had again cared for me without favorable result.) I began the reading with all the attention of which I was capable, and learned that it was necessary to choose between material remedies and God, who had no need of aid. I arose and refused all remedies. When the doctor arrived, he stopped on the threshold, surprised and stern. Upon seeing me in an armchair and noticing that the medicine was almost untouched, he reproached me. I replied that it would always be so from now on. Whereupon he bowed to me and withdrew; and since then I have never seen him.

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