I have been for the past year very much interested in the subject of "Christian Science" of late I have been thinking seriously of making it a study not for moneymakingAs Written:money making but for the good of others. I am the wife of a Methodist Clergyman, my husband is quite willing that I should do this if it seems best. I am not a crank in any sense of the word or at least am not now considered so by my friends, but a devoted wife, and mother of a fine boy sixteen years of age am, and always have been very domestic in my tastes as well as somewhatAs Written:some what literary do not write for anythingAs Written:any thing except an occasional paper for a "Woman's Club" but am studying more or less all the time. I have read what came within my reach on the subject of the so-calledAs Written:so called "Mind Cure" Your "Science of Health"Editorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy has just been sent me by a friend shall commence it immediately.
In one of your small books you offer to teach Clergymen free. Do you include in this offer the wives also? Of course you are aware that as a rule these people have not many hundred dollars to spend outside of their actual needs, we are not poverty-strickenAs Written:poverty stricken in any sense of the word and I do not ask this as a charity, but I understand it requires one hundred dollarsEditorial Note: $100.00 in 1886 is the equivalent of $2,753.32 in 2020. at least for lessons Now I have not this to pay with the other expenses, traveling and board while away from home would be all I could manage in the way of expenses. Then with me the question of time would be an item which must be considered. Would you be kind enough to inform me on the first questions. if it is affirmative will you tell me the length of time it would require As Written: requie away from home, and the probable expense of board, in a first class private family. But last, but not least, what peculiar talent does it require. perhaps I do not possess it if so it would be the height of folly for me to do anythingAs Written:any thing with it. I am not afraid in the least of the ridicule which is showered upon people who take up this study, but do not care to subject myselfAs Written:my self to it uselessly neither As Written: niether have I any money to throw away in its pursuit if at last I should fail to be successful. I must confess that thus far it is to me a mystery but of course I am walking in darkness, but when I say to these people who have made it a study – or claim to, what is it? they only say, I cannot explain it to you. I have known of some really wonderful As Written: wonderfull things done in its name but the means looks so unreasonable that it staggers me, and yet I cannot but feel there is something in it. I am perfectly sincere in the pursuit of this knowledge and would be happy – very if by my feeble efforts I could make life less difficult for others. I do this now to the best of my ability because it is the SavioursEditorial Note: Jesus Christ command but if one can take some of the pain out of human lives which comes from bodily infirmities it seems to me it would be a great boon.
Will you kindly write me a few lines as soon as convenient For your encouragement I will say that "Christian Science" has some very warm friends in Michigan and is really gaining ground.