I had never heard the words "Christian Science" until I met my...

Albert F. Hooke

I had never heard the words "Christian Science" until I met my wife some twenty years ago. I had smoked cigarettes from the time I was fourteen years old, and I thought that alcoholic drinks were the best way to get relief from the stresses and strains of daily life. I knew nothing at that time of a spiritual concept of life. In fact, I believe the very words I used to my wife were, "You can raise the children in Christian Science but don't ever expect me to be one." After all, I didn't want to give up what I thought at the time were all the fun things of living.

Mrs. Eddy writes in the chapter on Marriage (Science and Health, p. 66): "Husbands and wives should never separate if there is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the logic of events than for a wife precipitately to leave her husband or for a husband to leave his wife. If one is better than the other, as must always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good company." The marginal heading for this paragraph reads, "Patience is wisdom."

About eight years after our marriage I went into business for myself and, because of inexperience and self-indulgence, was not able to handle it properly. Debts piled up. Moderate drinking became daily, excessive drinking. This was an extremely trying period for my wife, and another broken home might well have been the result if it had not been for her earnest study and practice of Christian Science. I began to attend church with my wife to "keep her happy."

"Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee" (Job 22:21). The noncondemning attitude of the loving, intelligent people I met at those Sunday services and Wednesday testimony meetings awakened my interest in Christian Science and its Discoverer and Founder, Mrs. Eddy. I read everything I could get my hands on about Mrs. Eddy and found her to be one of the most dynamic, remarkable, divinely inspired women in history.

I began studying the Lesson-Sermon in the Quarterly regularly, and my desire to become an active church member became so strong that, with the help of a practitioner, I was healed overnight of the smoking habit. Through continued prayerful work the desire for alcohol was completely supplanted by the desire to reflect God and so let my light shine that others would find the message of healing Christian Science offers all mankind.

My wife, three healthy children, and I rely completely on God and the practice of Christian Science to meet all our needs.

For membership in a branch church and The Mother Church, for class instruction, for the opportunity to teach in our Sunday School, I am humbly grateful.

In Miscellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy says (p. 359), "The way is absolute divine Science: walk ye in it; but remember that Science is demonstrated by degrees, and our demonstration rises only as we rise in the scale of being."

Albert F. Hooke, St. Louis, Missouri

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