For many years I had been an invalid; and, from an injury to the knee, used crutches eight years. Later on, a fall crippled the well limb, rendering me perfectly helpless, through loss of nerve power, caused by neuralgia of the optic nerve, I was unable to use my eyes for sixteen years. I had been in the bondage of numerous beliefs, confined almost entirely to a darkened room nearly six years, when Christian Science came to me as a "Light shining in darkness." After an hour's conversation with the lady, who subsequently became my healer and teacher, I saw that she had an understanding of the spiritual life, which I had been seeking, but had not found. With the thought that I, too, might obtain this knowledge, and become partaker of the wonderful love which I saw in her,—but with very little hope of physical healing,—I began to take treatment. In a short time, and instantaneously, sight came clear as ever. I began to walk, and all beliefs yielded to the power of Truth.
I could no longer be blinded to the falsity of the old teaching, and step by step was led out of it, until it seemed indeed that "I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." I feel that the Church of Christ, Scientist, of which I am now a member, is indeed the Body of Christ; and "Our baptism is a purification from the flesh."
The Bible Lessons in our Quarterlies, bring to me a wonderful revelation of light, and each lesson fills, so completely, the need of the hour. In my study of the references given, I am always lifted above self; and often the feeling comes that angel visitants are with me, and "With white fingers they point upward to a, new and glorified trust, a higher ideal of Life and its joys." Then I feel a cry from some patient for spiritual healing; and I immediately leave the study, to send to the patient the Truth these lessons send out to us "with healing in his wings." In the lesson on the raising of Lazarus, was healing for one of my patients. She came to me on the Friday before, and on that Sabbath morning said she was no better; in the afternoon said:— "Something tells me I am better, but I don't know how." In the evening she said,—"The light has come!" Soon after, she announced herself healed. She was resurrected from her dead beliefs, into newness of life. Another said to me,—"Through these lessons, every thing seems to be made over." Still another: —"These Bible lessons are sifting; making us feel as though we wanted to purify ourselves." A gentleman said,—"I must have the Quarterly, for it helps me so much to understand Science and Health." Such expressions, and they are numberless, coming through patients, prove the purity of thought put into the lessons, and every pure thought of Truth brings healing to all.—
