My last years in high school and my college career were beset with difficulties. I yielded to several forms of temptation—among them, experimentation with drugs, habitual use of alcohol and cigarettes, and poor moral standards, I also experienced problems with my health, including a digestive difficulty and vision difficulties resulting from an eye injury.

I sought help for the morality problem from a Protestant clergyman, but I found no hope offered, only further despair. I tried using willpower to stop smoking and taking drugs, but there was no lasting effect. During one semester in college I drank large amounts of coffee to stay awake, and slept only with the aid of tranquilizers. A concerned friend suggested a type of meditation for relief. I tried it but to no avail. I also wore prescribed glasses to alleviate the vision difficulty.

My religious training in a popular denomination during childhood and young adulthood familiarized me with Bible stories, but provided little insight into the application of Christian truths to present-day needs. In fact, in one church I attended, God's very existence was seriously questioned and discussed!

After college I seemed to make little progress. The morality problem wouldn't yield despite my well-intentioned efforts. I truly felt as though I were a slave to an animal nature and a physical body. Eventually, this problem threatened to destroy a very special relationship, and I became most unhappy. In addition, my financial condition became precarious. Because of this latter difficulty, one day I telephoned a relative—a Christian Science practitioner—to borrow some money. Before the telephone was answered I could see that further borrowing wasn't a solution, and before hearing his kindly voice I'd had a small change of heart.

A year earlier he had recommended I begin to study Science, and our conversation this day focused on how I might start. Later, he lent me a copy of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and we met together and discussed some fundamental spiritual concepts—for one, man as made by God. Our deeply Christian discussion of "man's perfectibility" (see Science and Health 110: 8–12) began a gradual change in my thinking and living which has brought much healing and reformation in the years since.

The cigarette habit of ten years' standing was healed just through reading the textbook. This was virtually effortless—a sharp contrast to the severe struggling that had attended willful attempts to quit in the past. It was also quite dramatic to me and provided the impetus I needed to work out the other problems.

As I have grown to understand more of my real spiritual identity, God's unfailing love for man has been more evident to me and has been demonstrated in continually increasing purity in my life, and a growing appreciation of the Science that is the foundation of these changes.

I was quickly healed of the desire for alcohol, and my eyesight improved to the point where I stopped wearing the eyeglasses. (One eye had been burned while I was in high school. Although the doctor treating me had predicted gradually worsening vision during the rest of my life, the healing has proved permanent.) The digestive trouble has been completely healed, in that I now eat normally without discomfort. (Adherence to a medically prescribed diet was dropped prior to the healing.)

The morality problem didn't yield as readily, however. Much persistence was required. While never becoming trapped in this self-defeating behavior again, I had to work patiently and earnestly to realize my freedom from the hypnotic suggestion that I was vulnerable to this unpleasant form of idolatry. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, writes (Science and Health, p. 22): "If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race.

"When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving."

Although I can't pinpoint an exact date, this healing occurred during 1977. The threatened relationship was also saved at that time. Since then I have happily married, joined The Mother Church and a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, and taken Christian Science class instruction. More recently I have served my branch church on its executive board and as First Reader. What a joy I felt—how privileged I was—to read aloud to those attending our services the truths that had set me free!

ROBERT WILSON WELLES SQUIRE
Denver, Colorado