Christian Science came into my experience in answer to a desire for truth. I loved the church in which I had been brought up, and enjoyed my contacts with its scholarly and thoughtful teachers, but I became dissatisfied with its teaching. Feeling that religion was too serious a matter to be weighed against any other consideration, I bought textbooks on spiritualism and theosophy, only to lay them aside with the conviction that those theories fell short of my idea of truth.

A few months later some Christian Science literature was given to a member of the family circle who was recovering from the effects of an operation. She welcomed the teaching, but I was annoyed, because I mistakenly believed that the practice of Christian Science consisted of the patient pretending that he was well, ignoring the symptoms, and keeping up by will power.

After reading a single article in The Christian Science Journal, however, I saw that I had been mistaken. I felt like one who has long been traveling through a dark tunnel and has at last seen a gleam of light at the end, for I learned that God does not send suffering or sickness to His children. I at once began to apply that simple truth to a form of catarrh from which, in spite of treatment from two physicians, I had suffered for twelve years. I argued that if God did not send it to me I did not need to have it. In a short time the symptoms began to abate, and in six months I was completely and permanently healed. I knew then that my prayer for truth had been answered.

We bought a copy of Science and Health, and I had not read many chapters before I became aware that the services of the church I attended had taken on a new interest for me, for the Bible had become vital and practical, instead of little more than a collection of beautiful literature and too familiar stories. Later, when I occasionally had the opportunity to attend a Christian Science church in Glasgow, I twice received healings during the services. On the first occasion I had gone to the city to do a specific piece of work, but on arriving I was thrown off a tramcar in motion. The next day I was suffering from bruises, stiffness, and the effects of the shock, but I had a great desire to go to the testimony meeting that evening. On leaving the service I found myself running down the street to catch a tramcar, completely free from all discomfort, and with a sense of buoyancy I had not known for many weeks. On the second occasion, when again alone in the city, I became ill with a rheumatic chill accompanied by fever. I had formerly been laid up each winter for several weeks with similar chills, and had always arisen much weakened, partly owing to the medicines prescribed. I was therefore afraid, and asked help from a practitioner. On the third day I felt little better, but Truth was working. I was anxious to go to the Sunday evening service and was able to rise and reach the church. During the singing of the last hymn I realized that I was completely well.

Since then I have been privileged to attend Christian Science services in several places in Great Britain, Switzerland, and France, and have always experienced a sense of refreshment, of clearer, more settled thought, of renewed buoyancy and happiness; and I have often marveled at the inspired wisdom which made our Leader ordain the Bible and Science and Health as our only preachers (Church Manual, Art. XIV, Sect. 1), thus eliminating human opinions and personality.

Before hearing of Christian Science I rarely knew what it was to feel well. I was not strong as a child, my health broke down at college, and when I volunteered for military nursing during the last war I was rejected for general hospital work owing to a condition of the heart. Thus I am fully and gratefully aware that the health I have enjoyed in recent years is due to the understanding of Christian Science I have gained. Of the many healings I have experienced, none has been more appreciated than that of hemorrhoids, which occurred many years ago. At the same time I was healed of the need of taking medicine, to which I had been in continual bondage for twenty-five years.

I had an instantaneous healing of loneliness, which has meant much to me. A friend with whom I was traveling abroad was suddenly called home. The following morning I walked out on the pier to enjoy the glittering sea, but was soon joined by a lively Sunday crowd. As I watched the passing people the fact that everyone but myself seemed to have a companion, the unfamiliar language, and the consciousness that I was alone in a foreign country, brought on a painful sense of solitariness. I quickly turned from it and said: "Well, I am not alone. God is with me." Instantly the cloud of depression lifted, and I felt companioned, content, and happy. Since that day, many years ago, I have never known what it is to feel lonely. When, more recently, I was bereaved, I felt no sense of separation, but only a sense of my friend as still living; and during these war years of divided families and separated friends I have often thought of the comfort in Mrs. Eddy's words on page 131 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," "Where God is we can meet, and where God is we can never part."

I gladly acknowledge how consistently and fully my needs have been met during these last few years of apparent stringency. Occasionally it has been necessary to resort to some definite spiritual idea, such as that God is Mother as well as Father to every household, or simply that "the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" (Ps. 23:1). Then supply has always appeared, sometimes with an abundance sufficient to meet the needs of others also. Thus has been proved again the truth of Mrs. Eddy's words in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307), "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies."

In the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit I have found that gratitude is a powerful weapon: indeed in a time of stress it has sometimes been necessary to stop for a few moments every hour and turn in gratitude to God.

I have learned much from practitioners, to whom I owe a great debt; especially to one whose kindness and patience have often made me realize humbly something of the goodness of divine Love. I feel more grateful every year for class instruction and for the enlightenment gained at the association meetings, for membership in The Mother Church, and for the literature and the Lesson-Sermons, which are our daily food.—(Miss) Elsie S. Rule, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland.