n the dark regarding Life and its governing
Principle as had the divines before them.

About four years ago, while still in the mental condition above indicated,
my attention was called to what at that time appeared to me to be a new
phase of spiritism, and which was called by those who professed to believe
in it, _Christian Science_. I thought that I had given some attention to
about all the _isms_ that ever existed, and that this was only another
phantasm of some religionist lost in the labyrinths of mental
hallucination.

In my reflections at that time it seemed to me that life was an
incomprehensible enigma; that the creator had placed us on this earth, and
left us entirely in the dark as to His purpose in so doing. We seemed to
be cast upon the ocean of time, and left to drift aimlessly about, with no
exact knowledge of what was required of us or how to attain unto the
truth, which must certainly have an existence somewhere. It seemed to me
that in the very nature of things there must be a great error somewhere in
our understanding, or that the creator Himself had slipped a cog when He
fitted all things into their proper spheres. That there had been a grand
mistake somewhere I had no doubt; but I still had doubt enough of my own
capabilities and understanding to believe that the mistake, whatever it
was, was in me and not in the creator. I knew that, in a fair measure at
least, I had an honest desire to live aright, as it was given me to see
the right, and to strive to some extent to do the will of God, if I could
only know certainly just what it was.

While in this frame of mind, I inwardly appealed to the great unseen power
to enlighten my understanding, and to lead me into a knowledge of the
truth, promising mentally to follow wherever it might lead, if I could
only do so understandingly.

My wife had been investigating Christian Science to some extent, but
knowing my natural antipathy to such vagaries, as I then thought them, had
said very little to me about it; but one day, while discussing the
mysteries of life with a judge of one of our courts, he asked me whether I
had ever looked into the teachings of the Christian Scientists. I told him
that I had not, and he urged me very strongly to do so. He claimed to have
investigated their teachings, and said that he had become a thorough
believer in them. This aroused my curiosity, and I procured the book
called "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a