The Woman in Boston JEAN HUDGENS ROME          In 1870, in the city of St. Louis, a party of lawyers were discussing the questions of the day. I was a child among them, unheedful of their conversation; but my ear caught one thing. They said that a new theory was being advanced by a woman in Boston. They then stated this theory as clearly, perhaps, as could be done under the circumstances. That little group I have never seen since that year, but all through the years following, the question would come up, What has become of that "woman in Boston?" I can now plainly trace the growth of the seed of Truth, and see again and again where it yielded a blossom.          At one time I was an admirer of Ingersoll. I did not believe in the Bible, or in Jesus, so I thought I could not pray. But the lessons of life were bitter and hard, and, in an extreme hour of despair this thought came to me: "I exist: I have intelligence: since I am a creature I must have a Creator, and the creature and Creator cannot be separated." I appealed for help to this unknown God, but I would not say "In the name of Jesus." I would not read the Bible and would not go to church.          After months of appealing for light I found myself studying the Bible with absorbing interest. I could ask "in His name" then, though not really knowing what it meant. Nothing but Christian Science could give the understanding of Jesus' relation to God and man.          All these thoughts coming to me and helping towards the Light, I now see are the outgrowth of the effort of those men to explain this "new theory," and the reflection of Truth that was certainly going out into the darkness of human beliefs through this God-sent "woman in Boston."          Eventually I became an orthodox church member, but I could not rest there long. The loving thought given to me by the people of the church will receive the perpetual reward of gratitude; it belongs to Divine Love. But the creed too often gives a stone when we ask for bread.          I found myself building all hope on the belief that the second coming of Christ was at hand.          I studied the prophecies, trying to search out, with the help of Commentaries, the mystery of the 1290 days of Daniel, twelfth chapter, and the other periods of time. Several of the commentaries agreed that the end of the "time, times and a half" would be the year 1866. In the meantime, through all these years I had never known one day of health, and in the difficulties that beset my efforts to get the Light I was becoming physically blind. In this midnight I again found God a "present help." I heard the name of Christian Science. A friend explained this new old theory of the woman in Boston; and my eyes were instantly healed [see S. & H., p. 577-3 (1896)].          When I opened the "little book," Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the first words I saw were these: "In 1866 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing" (S. & H., p. 1). The "theory of the woman in Boston" was before me. It had been leading me all the way, but I had been seeking the manifestation of it for eighteen years. "That Truth gives promise of a dawn Beneath whose light I am to see, When all these blinding veils are drawn, This was the wisest path for me."   "The Woman in Boston" by Jean Hudgens Rome The Christian Science Journal, December, 1896

 

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