When I began the study of Christian Science by reading...

Renée Mousset

When I began the study of Christian Science by reading "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," it did not escape my attention that the author, Mary Baker Eddy, disapproved of the use of tobacco. Now, smoking was a habit I had had for thirty years, but I saw that it was impossible for me to call myself a Scientist if I continued to yield to a craving which I knew was of a sort to impede spiritual growth. So I decided to treat myself, and I studied means to overcome this bondage.

First of all I realized that I ought to avoid resorting to the use of human will power. I then took Science and Health and started to read. Happily, I soon recalled a recent Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly. I took up again the section dealing with the unreality of sin, and read the following lines (Science and Health, p. 339): "To get rid of sin through Science, is to divest sin of any supposed mind or reality, and never to admit that sin can have intelligence or power, pain or pleasure."

Thus, thanks to the Lesson-Sermon, my line of conduct was marked out completely and exactly. I read and pondered for a long time. One Sunday went by, and I did not smoke. The next day, however, despite my work, I was twice subject to temptation so strong that I gave in to it. The state of mind which I knew I must certainly attain was that to which Mrs. Eddy refers in Science and Health (p. 296): "Mortal belief must lose all satisfaction in error and sin in order to part with them." On Tuesday, having given way once more to temptation, I threw away the cigarette I was smoking. I had come to realize that not only did I derive no further pleasure from smoking, but it was even somewhat distasteful. Thus I was healed in three days. But if I succeeded in healing myself so completely, so quickly, and, above all, so easily, it is because I understood that, even as my desire for tobacco hindered my spiritual growth, so it was only by further uplifting myself spiritually that I would master this craving, see first its vanity, then its nothingness, and so finally conquer it.

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