Among the pleasantest memories...

Among the pleasantest memories of my childhood days are those recollections of association with the church in our little town. I learned to love the Bible, but I often wondered about the promises made therein, and hoped that sometime I would gain a clearer understanding of them.

After I was grown and had taught school I had an opportunity to attend a large university where there were some of the best teachers of religious education in the country. But I was very much surprised and disappointed at their explanation of the Scriptures. During the Christmas vacation of that year there was a national convention of young people interested in religious education, and at one of the meetings a young man arose and said that he felt there was an infinite reservoir of good for all of us if we knew how to tap it. He seemed to express perfectly the way I felt, but since no one knew how to draw on these riches, the Biblical promises seemed to be mere mockeries. Feeling it was futile to make further effort to solve the mysteries of the Bible, I resolved that I would never read it again or offer another prayer to God.

After making this decision I was a most miserable person, for I felt that I had deserted my God. As days went on I became more and more unhappy, and I knew there would come a crisis. I felt something would happen to me for having made this decision. A few days later I was struck by an automobile and, among other injuries received, both my knees were fractured, the left one seriously. I stayed in the hospital for thirteen weeks and more casts on both legs for six months. When the casts were removed I had only slight flexibility in my left knee. My knees were massaged and other treatments given, but I finally realized there was no human help that would restore normal action. I became desperate and after months of prayerless days I said, "O God, help me." In a few days the thought came to me to ask my mother to borrow from a friend the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Previous to that time I had been opposed to what I understood Christian Science to be. As soon as I started to read the textbook and saw that it was indeed a "key" to the Scriptures, I was very happy and knew that this was a direct answer to my prayer. At last I had found how to tap the "infinite reservoir of good." My healing came gradually from my reading and with no help from a practitioner.

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Poem
Thy Birthright
July 11, 1942
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