Five years ago a friend took me to a Christian Science service in London. I very distinctly remember the three sentences which attracted me to this wonderful teaching. For the first time I heard repeated several times, "Heal the sick," in a way which brought the conviction that this was a command to each and all; it rang out like a clarion call! I longed to obey that call. The second sentence was the spiritual interpretation of part of the Lord's Prayer, "Feed the famished affections" (Science and Health, p. 17), for I had hungered and thirsted for a better and more practical affection in the daily life. Then came the third sentence, "Physician, heal thyself," and I had great need of restoration before I could set forth on this hitherto unknown way. I began reading "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and was so certain that it was the truth that my only wish was to go on and on, to learn more and prove it; so 1 began putting into practice all I could from the beginning. The doctor's diagnosis of my physical condition had been most discouraging. but I sought and found a Christian Scientist, who took my case, and I was healed of great physical debility and an unhappy, discontented state of mind which had caused me much suffering. Since then I have been healed of an abscess in one third the time a similar one had taken under materia medica, and surgery, and with none of the suffering and illness attending the former one. Besides this, my nose, which was severely injured through a fall, was set perfectly and the cut healed in a few hours without stitching or a single material application or manipulation, and all trace of that and other injuries,—stiff neck, grazes, and bruises,—disappeared within five days.
It would take too long to detail the many other blessings I have had in physical healing and the prevention of illness and trouble, for which I am very thankful. I am even more grateful that I have been able to follow, in some degree, the command which first appealed to me. I have seen how this is done, that it is "the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying. overlying, and encompassing all true being" (Science and Health, p. 496). I have seen this truth demonstrated in the healing of lung and heart trouble, etc., sometimes in a few hours. My own former experiences with many different methods of medical, surgical, electric, and hydropathic treatment, made me more grateful than words can express for the beauty and purity of the spiritual method of healing revealed through Christian Science. It was like coming out of a thick fog into a fresh, clear atmosphere.
I was rejoiced to learn the nothingness of matter; to apprehend the allness of Spirit, the omnipresence of God, the omnipotence of divine Love. Without this knowledge, "the scientific line of demarcation between Truth and error, between Spirit and so-called matter" (Science and Health, p. 586), I had found it impossible to solve the many and distressing problems of life as seen humanly. These problems had troubled and saddened me as long as I can remember. From the first reading of Science and Health I saw the underlying Principle and felt that in this light I should understand the Bible. Turning to it, I found to my joy that I could see this same Principle in it. The Bible had become to me little more than a meaningless mosaic of old stories and barbaric history, which had no relation to modern life, but I occasionally turned to it to read one chapter, John 14. This appealed to me in an indefinable way, because I had a great veneration and love for Christ Jesus and his great sacrifice for humanity, though I did not believe in the miracles. Through Christian Science I saw that the Bible contained the Science of Being, something which could be worked out, which stood on its own intrinsic merit, apart from history, authorship, or date, and some gleam of the wonder and glory of the things of God came to me. It is indeed much to have the certain conviction of a perfect Principle, and a perfect Science with its rules, which show clearly that man is now spiritual and perfect. The immutable basis and true ideal are our constant consolation and inspiration in running "the race that is set before us."
