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CONVERT TO THE RELIGION OF HEALHY-MINDEDNESS. Quoted in William James: Varieties of Religious experence.

I went into town to do some shopping one morning, and I had not been gone long before I began to feel ill. The ill feeling increased rapidly, until I had pains in all my bones, nausea and faintness, headache, all the symptoms in short that precede an attack of influenza.

I thought that I was going to have the grippe, epidemic then in Boston, or something worse. The mind-cure teachings that I had been listening to all the winter thereupon came into my mind, and I thought that here was an opportunity to test myself.

On my way home I met a friend, and I refrained with some effort from telling her how I felt. That was the first step gained.

I went to bed immediately, and my husband wished to send for the doctor. But I told him that I would rather wait until morning and see how I felt. Then followed one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

I cannot express it in any other way than to say that I did "lie down in the stream of life and let it flow over me." I gave up all fear of any impending disease; I was perfectly willing and obedient. There was no intellectual effort, or train of thought. My dominant idea was: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me even as thou wilt," and a perfect confidence that all would be well, that all was well. The creative life was flowing into me every instant, and I felt myself allied with the infinite, in harmony, and full of the peace that passeth understanding.

There was no place in my mind for a jarring body. I had no consciousness of time or space or persons; but only of love and happiness and faith.

I do not know how long this state lasted, nor when I fell asleep; but when I woke up in the morning, I was well.