"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big...

Heinz R. Hallbauer with contributions from Esther Hallbauer

"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings," Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Pref., p. vii). With this promise opens the Preface to our glorious textbook; and wonderfully it has been fulfilled for me!

From earliest youth I was almost constantly sick. I often had grippe, and coughed almost continuously. I had also undergone an operation; and when, in my fifteenth year, an unusually severe case of nephritis developed, I already had such a weakened constitution that this seemed to be the end. The kidneys had apparently stopped functioning and I was unrecognizably bloated. One doctor after another gave me up, among them two world-famous kidney specialists. After three years my fourteenth and last doctor told my parents that it was impossible to keep me in this life, and added that I need not continue to keep so strict a diet, for the struggle was already lost. I suffered constantly from terrible thirst, but dared drink nothing. I hobbled about like a very old man, was abnormally anæmic, and when hard breathing (due to heart weakness) set in, the death sentence was definitely pronounced by the doctor.

But sick as I was in body, I was more sick at heart. Since earliest youth I had always pondered the question, What is truth? and the meaning of life. I sought despairingly, but no philosophical theory could give me peace, although I eagerly examined the various philosophies of life. So it is understandable that the trend of my thought was led consistently to the total denial of a God who I thought created so much imperfection. From complete conviction I was an atheist. I had also become a melancholy individual and never laughed. Sustained only by the will to carry out something in my business, I held myself with the remains of my energy to life; yet I was a man quite without hope, without faith, and inwardly old.

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