I first felt the healing touch of Truth and Love through Christian Science about seven years ago. A dear friend, who had long been a close companion, and whose continued suffering I had witnessed, returned that fall from a visit to San Francisco, and I saw such a marked improvement in her that I was eager to know what had helped her so much. I was teaching at the time, but under great difficulties, for I had long suffered from nervous debility and chronic liver trouble, and for five years had worn glasses. For about eight years I had been frequently under the care of doctors. There were no Christian Scientists in the town where I was living, but when the Christmas vacation came I went to San Francisco to visit, and while there I went to a Christian Science practitioner, hoping to get some help. I told him of all the ills and troubles that I had been burdened with, for I felt tired and discouraged and longed to be rid of them.
I asked if I must have faith in Christian Science in order to be healed, for I knew nothing about it whatever and did not know how I could believe absolutely in something about which I was totally ignorant; but I was assured that this was not necessary. Until that very day I had been taking medicine daily for two years, but as. I had always been willing to follow every direction of the doctors while I was under their care, so now I was willing to obey the practitioner's directions, and I gave up the medicine and received treatment. I can never forget the relief that came to me that first day. It seemed to me I had never felt such rest and peace in all my life. It was as if a storm that had tossed me about for years had suddenly been stilled. It was indeed the "Peace, be still," and the blessed voice of Truth and Love, "that even the winds and the sea obey," calmed my troubled thoughts and fears, and I was healed. The nervous suffering left me completely in the one week's treatment that I had. I have never suffered from liver trouble since then, and my glasses were discarded with the first treatment. I returned to my work with new strength and with new courage and hope, and during the five years of teaching that followed I never again experienced the tired, strained feeling that had so long afflicted me. Even at the end of each term I felt fresh and full of vigor.
It is easy to tell of one's physical healing, and a happy privilege, but words cannot so easily express the spiritual uplifting, the turning of one's thoughts and desires into new and purer channels. The increasing desire to learn more of infinite Love and to understand God's allness has destroyed the desire to hate or to resent, as well as the disposition constantly and stubbornly to argue and contradict everything said to me, for I realize now that to "become as a little child,"—to be willing to listen,—is the only means by which we may enter into the kingdom of heaven; that stubbornness is not a help, but a stumblingblock to spiritual growth. With this awakening has come a growing desire to learn obedience, for I know that only as we obey divine Principle, Love, can we reap the fruits of the Spirit; only as we obey can we realize the fulfilment of the promises.
