"The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 322 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." These words are indicative of the condition of thought in which Christian Science found me about nineteen years ago.

Every material prop had failed me in my search for God and happiness. When I reached a point where I was passing through the darkest hours of my human experience. I wrote a Christian Science practitioner to "pray that I find God." This practitioner was a member of my family residing in a distant state. He had visited our home, and noting my unhappiness had hinted to me several times that one's own thinking had everything to do with one's health and happiness. But at that time his words fell on deaf ears.

While I believed in a God of some kind, and often spent hours praying and beseeching Him to send me release, even by death, underneath that blind faith was a strong conviction that God was punishing me for my sins, and that I should have to endure these miseries to the end. What that end would be was the mystery I could not fathom. Yet always in my heart I echoed Job's cry, "Oh that I knew where I might find him!"

In this case "man's extremity" again proved to be "God's opportunity," for before the request reached its human destination, an angel message brought peace to my troubled thought in these words: "It is not your Father's will that you should suffer. Let go your human will that His will may be done through you."

A wonderful sense of compassionate love and forgiveness flooded my consciousness, and at that moment I realized that I stood on holy ground, and that finding God was a wholly mental process. Fetters that had bound me for years dropped away, and I stepped forth into a new world of joyous freedom. For weeks after this experience I was free from any disturbance although the material conditions had not changed. I learned for the first time that my thinking had everything to do with my happiness. At this time I had never read a line of Christian Science. Though I had had opportunities to read some of the literature, I refused it and rather made light of what I thought it was; but after taking up correspondence with the practitioner, who quoted so many beautiful and comforting passages from the Bible, I asked him to send me something to read that would help me.

He sent me several religious articles clipped from The Christian Science Monitor; and, as I drank in this spiritual food, my eyes were opened to what Christian Science really is—the very truth that Christ Jesus said would make us free.

Some time after this I attended my first Christian Science service —a Communion service. It seemed to me, as I entered that quiet sanctuary, that the very gates of heaven were opened and the sweetest sense of peace and harmony pervaded my being. From that day, I have never had a desire to attend any but a Christian Science church. I borrowed the Christian Science textbook to begin the daily study of the Lesson-Sermon, and very shortly I acquired all of Mrs. Eddy's writings.

During this time I had no thought of physical healing, but in a few weeks I awoke to the fact that I had been healed of two chronic conditions, for which I had tried many material remedies without permanent healing. I thank God I found Him for He not only "forgiveth all thine iniquities," but He "healeth all thy diseases," as the Psalmist writes.

About two years after beginning the study of Christian Science, I passed through a very severe testing time with eczema. This condition lasted about a year, and at times the suffering seemed almost beyond human endurance. The healing came about so gradually that I was hardly conscious that it was going on. But I was very conscious of more love coming into my thought, and of many ugly traits of character disappearing, including self-will.

Later on, during an epidemic of influenza. I was stricken suddenly one afternoon while at my work. I hastened to my room and asked the practitioner with whom I lived at the time to help me. She worked through the night several times for me, as I was in a semiconscious state and seemed very ill; but I awoke the next morning completely healed. This healing contrasts strikingly with an attack I had during an epidemic of the same disease several years before I knew of Christian Science, when I lingered three weeks in a hospital, according to the doctor "between life and death." At that time I was several months recovering my strength.

After about three years of study and demonstration of the truth, I joined a branch church, and later became a member of The Mother Church. At this time it became necessary for me to become self-supporting, and to give up my home, which I had enjoyed for eighteen years. I was able in a few months to readjust my personal affairs completely and to begin a new life in the business world. By absolute reliance on God, with the help and encouragement of a practitioner, I was divinely led to work that has for the past fifteen years afforded me opportunity for spiritual growth, with travel and educational advantages far beyond anything I could have humanly outlined.

I shall always hold in loving memory the practitioner who helped me to behold my rightful heritage as a child of God; and especially do I revere Mary Baker Eddy, who has marked the way so plainly for us through divine Science. During the years I have studied Christian Science I have never doubted for a moment its healing efficacy or that it is the truth that Christ Jesus promised would make us free.—(Mrs.) Martha R. Wetmore, Little Rock, Arkansas.