It is with a feeling of profound gratitude that I send this testimony. I did not come to Christian Science for physical healing though for about fifteen years I had been more or less an invalid, and twice had been laid up for months. That which impelled me was a great longing for the truth, and the wish to know more about "the deep things of God" than the teachings of the church in which I had been brought up could give me. For some time I had been looking into every new line of thought I came across, but without being able to find anything to satisfy the yearnings of my heart. So when an American lady then resident at The Hague was given a copy of Science and Health by relatives who were greatly interested in Christian Science, and told me the little which she had heard of this new form of religion, I asked her to lend me her book. That was the first I heard of the great movement, then wholly unknown in Holland.
I did not then know that the "little book" I borrowed contained the pearl of great price,—the truth, the leaven that is leavening the thought of the whole world. I cannot say when or how the great work of transformation began in me. I only know that I soon realized that this was the truth I had been longing for, and that "the Sun of righteousness" had risen, "with healing in his wings," for the pains that had so long made life a burden, and the constant feeling of weakness and fatigue, had disappeared into nothingness. Then I began to go to work consciously, to work out my own salvation in the glorious light of ever-present Truth and Love, and though the way has often been rugged, and old errors seemed very tenacious, I can humbly and gratefully say that old things are passing away, and the work of regeneration, spiritual, moral, and physical, is going on.
Many glorious proofs of the ever-present help of Love have strengthened my trust in God, and it is my greatest joy and privilege to be able to devote most of my time to the work of bringing the glad gospel of healing to others, and in helping them to overcome what seems to separate them from man's birthright of health, peace, and joy. One of the greatest blessings that Science and Health has brought me is a clearer understanding of the Bible; all the well-known texts have received a new meaning; while formerly they appealed more to my feelings, they are now full of inspiration, a real, practical help for every phase of life, and the daily study of the Bible is not now taken up as a duty, but as an ever-increasing joy and privilege,.
