When I first investigated Christian Science it was not for physical healing, but for the spiritual teaching it offered, —for its presentation of the Christ-message. I had come into close fellowship with some people who were known as Christian Scientists, and was impressed with the understanding and practical help they received from their religion. What most appealed to me was the strong and sure ground on which they stood, and the firmness of their stand. I was impressed, not so much by their exertions in special cases, as by what was said and done naturally in every-day living, as an outcome of their training and progress in Christian Science. I observed and inquired and made comparisons, and one day told my pastor that if ever I could believe and think as these people did it would not take me long to become a Scientist.
Four years ago that time came, and in leaving the dear old church of my childhood there was no sense of giving up my religion. I loved my church, and am grateful for its teaching and help, but in turning to Christian Science I knew that all "the enduring, the good, and the true" (Science and Health, p. 261) previously received were still mine, and that I was but stepping onward and upward to more of good. There has been no disappointment in my search. Daily I receive from the exhaustless source, and learn that eternity is needed to assimilate and demonstrate all the good that Christian Science offers through Christ, Truth. I tell this for the sake of those who have discovered in Christian Science a fuller, richer, and more practical Christianity than they have known, and yet who are so deeply attached to their churches, because of many benefits there received, that to leave them would seem disloyalty. Gladly do we give up creeds and man-made doctrines: indeed I have found we give up absolutely nothing of true Christianity in accepting Christian Science.
I said I sought Christian Science for its theology, for its interpretation of the Word of God, as given in our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy; but as a natural consequence of the spiritual understanding gained by this study, I have experienced physical healing. In my family I have seen chronic and acute forms of illness disappear. Personally, I have been healed of a painful phase of stomach trouble, supposedly incurable, as it was of eighteen years' duration. Acute illness in its first symptoms, as well as in a later stage, has been arrested. Pain from a burn has been immediately relieved. Weariness due to unaccustomed physical exertion has been overcome; and love has been substituted for a strong and seemingly justifiable sense of disapproval and criticism held toward a friend.
