I Write , for my joy cannot be contained. Christian Science has rescued me from prison—from a prison of limitation and fear.

When I found Christian Science, I was literally working in a prison—in the front office of one, for the Department of Correction. One day I stopped by the information officer's desk and on the counter was a package of interesting-looking literature. The officer gave me permission to borrow it, and then I was to return it to him for dispatch to the prison library. The packet included copies of the Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor. This literature became for me the sunlight that "glances into the prison-cell" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy). It proclaimed the truth that Christ Jesus said would make us free.

That momentous day was the beginning of my awakening from a dark, foreboding sensual view of life with all its snarls and entanglements. I felt I was no longer lost or blind. I caught a glimpse of this incomparably logical and divinely reasonable truth. Thereafter I "borrowed" every packet of Christian Science literature that came into our facility.

Soon after I first learned of Science, a neighbor family who were Christian Scientists gave me two bags full of Sentinels and Journals, which I just devoured. Very soon I began my own subscriptions to these periodicals.

My hunger and thirst for the truth Christian Science was revealing to me were great enough to topple a thirty-year smoking habit. The healing didn't happen overnight. But as my understanding of God and my spiritual reasoning became clearer, I was determined that no addiction was going to deprive me of this newfound light that I knew I wanted to pursue. As I learned to know God better, this habit fell away, and the temptation has never returned in the more than fifteen years since.

Another healing in my early years as a Christian Scientist involved an injury to my forehead, just above one of my eyes. A sharp object was thrown at me by an assailant. After regaining consciousness, I went to a nearby business establishment, where I asked the manager to report the incident to the police; they came accompanied by an ambulance. The paramedic was quite insistent that I go to the hospital emergency room to have the eye checked, stating that there surely would be problems with seeing in the days to come if I didn't.

At this point I knew I was not going anywhere except home. I told the paramedic that I was a Christian Scientist. Besides, I knew that I was all right. He accepted my statement and called a Christian Science practitioner at my request. I was then driven home.

On the way, the bleeding stopped. During all this time, I felt no fear and, more important, no resentment toward the individual who was responsible for the attack. Within a week the injury was healed and I returned to work. There was never a scar, and there was never the predicted sight problem.

My membership in The Mother Church and our branch church, where I felt so welcome from my very first visit, nurtures the qualities that bring spiritual progress. I feel immeasurable gratitude to God for the world's true light, Christ Jesus, and for divine Science, the Comforter. My ceaseless prayer is that all mankind may be partakers of this unequaled blessing.

Bernice A. Abbott
Pompey, New York