In offering my testimony I wish to state that my doing so is purely voluntary. This has been left entirely to the dictates of my own conscience, a course which is pursued in Christian Science in all matters relating to the individual; and in no other relationship have I experienced such freedom or received such impetus to work out my own salvation, unquestioned and unrebuked, except as I asked for help. I speak of this because I remember that one of the stumbling-blocks in my early efforts to grasp the truth was a doubt as to whether the testimonies were entirely voluntary. In the feeling that Christian Scientists had something more than I had, I began to investigate, and one by one the terrible giants I had been fighting—as did Don Quixote— were proved to be but windmills; and so I grew in humility, drinking in the healing waters of this saving truth.
The feeling among many, that Christian Science is all right for nervous conditions but quite impossible as a curative agency in surgery or acute sickness, was utterly refuted in my experience. Our first experiment was in seeking help for our little son, who had suffered for three and a half years from nervous stomach trouble, also insomnia, hardly having had a satisfactory night's rest in that time. While he was ultimately healed, still the immediate results were not very convincing to an unbeliever; but my own healing in one treatment of a wound in the lower intestine from which I had suffered daily for nine years, at times almost unbearable pain, seemed to me as wonderful as the miracles in the Bible, and was an undisputed fact. We have since met scarlet fever, which was overcome in three days. The attack was very severe in its first symptoms and caused intense alarm, particularly in a near relative, who urged medical treatment. It was, however, met so quickly in Christian Science that this relative said nothing could now convince her that it had been scarlet fever, although a physician had pronounced it such. A very virulent attack of chicken-pox was met in two days; and chronic bronchitis, attended with periodical attacks of congestion and pneumonia, from which my husband had suffered for fifteen years, was also overcome by Christian Science treatment.
While it seems that the help we have received for physical trouble has been great, that for which I am most grateful is the glorious hope which has come to me since I began to understand something of this wonderful new-old truth. It is bringing a new trust in the allness of God. It has taught me not only where to look for the sunlight but how to get into it as well. It has revealed the divine Principle, by an understanding of which I can scientifically bring about good results. I can well remember a feeling of irritability at the constant expressions of gratitude which went out from those who had been healed, and I felt that should I ever give a testimony I would omit any reference to gratitude, as this paying of tribute seemed a stumbling-block to me; but were I to withhold it, the very stones would cry out. I must, therefore, express my gratitude to God for His great gift, and to our Leader for her perception of this wonderful truth and her glorious work on our behalf. This gratitude is so deep that only one can feel it who, like the blind man in the temple, cries, "Whereas I was blind, now I see."
