As a young child I had an interest in religious teachings, but the teachings I had received lacked something. My questions about God were not intelligently answered. What was lacking was not only an explanation of how Christ Jesus performed his cures but how spiritual healing could be done today. Christian Science was presented to me while I was a student in high school. It gave answers to these questions, and more.

Early religious training failed to teach me the difference between human emotion and divine Love. In fact, I believed mortal emotions to be a part of religion and of me. Feeling that I was a mortal separated from God, and that I needed to gain and express more emotional affection toward other mortals (which would result at some future time in a reward), I developed emotional states of thought that seemed uncontrollable. This often placed me in the position of hating those I should have been loving.

The serious study of Christian Science changed my life. I began to see evidence of mental calm, and the healing of physical problems through a scientific understanding of prayer, and a sense of purpose. However, there were at first peaks of inspiration and valleys of emotionalism, sensitivity, despair, frustration, and loneliness. The situation grew worse. I believed I was unloved. Condemnation and self-hatred were an obsession. Because of my mental state of weakness the situation appeared alarming and disturbing.

What I have come to see is that I was witnessing the destruction of a false sense, which should be waited on with expectation and painlessness. Mrs. Eddy accurately and vividly describes this mental state in Miscellaneous Writings in a paragraph beginning on page 203, which ends with these words on page 204: "Thus Truth, searching the heart, neutralizes and destroys error." In utter extremity I resolved to give all to God. I felt what it means to come to one's knees.

I asked for Christian Science treatment from a practitioner of Christian Science. The treatment helped.

One morning I distinctly felt the power of divine Love. My consciousness was filled with light. The room and everything were bathed with this light. I felt joy and love never felt before—outside of a mortal selfhood. I unreservedly loved everything I saw. Everything!

I was witnessing evidence of the absolute, unchanging, eternal Truth, divine Love, which is the only reality. I remember opening the Bible, and Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and thinking as I read, "How accurately these two books describe this reality!" In the first chapter of Genesis we read (w. 3, 4): "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good."

This light stayed with me for some time. It banished and destroyed completely and finally the mental deformity of excessive emotionalism. It established normal and temperate affection. Words are inadequate to fully describe this experience and what it did to my character, and to show me the spiritual nature of the real man.

I have been healed, through spiritual means alone, of symptoms of influenza, of colds, hemorrhoids, and the need for reading glasses. I had a quick healing of what appeared to be a broken bone from a mishap while skiing. I witnessed the removal of an unsightly growth, through spiritual means alone, with the realization that matter does not exist and so cannot grow.

I am grateful for the teachings of Christian Science and for the fidelity to this vision that Mrs. Eddy exhibited. It is because of her fidelity that we have the means and methods of learning how to demonstrate this Science, making healing experiences more than isolated instances. Christ Jesus' words and great healing works glow with new meaning through the lens of Christian Science.

I am grateful to have the tools Mrs. Eddy made available, which continually encourage, inspire, and heal, and for the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly, church membership, class instruction, and the yearly association meeting.

Albert G. Stout, III
Berkeley, California