Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/422

368 parlour for particulars. It seemed to me that it must require years of studying to learn Christian Science—and she whom I was trying to save would not long be here. But when I heard that the entire term required but three weeks, I gathered courage. In twenty minutes more I had arranged to enter a class.

The captain's wife was averse to his new plan. She was unwilling that he should add this tuition fee of several hundred dollars to the already heavy expenses of her long illness. Moreover, she was afraid that this Christian Science was some new kind of Spiritualism. But the captain never committed himself half-way. In that first interview Mrs. Eddy had won him completely. He had escaped typhoons and coral reefs and cannibal kings, only to arrive at an adventure of the mind which was vastly stranger. Into the class he went. He says:

The class included many highly cultured people, all more or less conversant with the rudiments of Christian Science; while I, a sailor, with only a seaman's knowledge of the world, and not the faintest inkling of the field to be opened up before me, felt very much out of place there. To that first and last and most important question "What is God?" the students replied variously. When the question came to me, I stammered out, "God is all, with all and in all. Everything that is good and pure." The teacher smiled encouragingly as my answers followed one another, and I was encouraged to go on. Every day during the term questions were asked and answers were made that puzzled me not a little. But to all my own simple earnest queries the patient teacher replied clearly and satisfactorily. The many laughs enjoyed by the class at my expense did not trouble me, therefore, for my teacher knew that I would not profess to understand when I did not. The simpler my questions, the more pains she took to explain clearly.

How much was due to my own changed thought I cannot tell, but after Christian Science was recognised in our home, even before I entered the college, my wife began to recover. As soon as I understood the rudiments, I began to treat her, and so quickly did she respond to the treatment that she was able to avail herself of the kind invitation of the teacher to accompany me to the final session.

The captain's conversion was a thorough one. He gave up