Eighteen months before I heard of Christian Science I had been pronounced incurable from an acute stomach disease. I had suffered from this disease for over twenty years, and had been to many doctors and taken a great deal of medicine. For ten months I had not been free from pain, day or night. All my life I had suffered from very severe headaches, which often incapacitated me altogether, and I was never long without one. I was treated by many doctors for them, but with no relief at all. I also suffered from rheumatic trouble. I had had fever twice, the first time when I was nine years old, and I was laid up six weeks with it each time. The last attack left me with a weak heart and constant throat trouble, and I was never without some form of the disease. Besides all this, I had varicose veins.
I did not come to Christian Science to seek its healing. I had never heard of it till I was asked by a friend to dissuade his wife from following it. I could not do that, as I knew nothing whatever about it, but he was so persistent in his entreaty that I promised to get the text-book of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and see what I could say after reading it. I got the book at once, and almost immediately I was asked to go and nurse a friend. I did not think I could possibly do this, on account of my own health; but I did go, and took the book with me. The first night my patient slept all night, while I read the book. In the middle of the night I found myself eating a big meal of all sorts of things, without the least fear of any evil consequences. I went on with the reading, and I soon knew that I had found the truth; all earthly care seemed lifted off me, and a wonderful new sense of peace and joy and happiness came to me. A new earth and a new heaven seemed to open all around me —there—God-filled, and I knew that I was well,—Godhealed! Yes, I was healed of all my diseases. A great sense of strength came to me; I was at once enabled to work hard for long hours without any feeling of fatigue whatever, and I have never known fatigue since.
Six months later I went to bed with what appeared 'to be the worst attack of rheumatic fever I had ever had, but I treated myself in Christian Science, got up and went out the next day, slept all that night, and awoke next morning perfectly well. I have never had a suspicion of this ailment since, and all the joint swelling has entirely gone. A year after this experience I was apparently attacked one afternoon with acute stomach pain, sickness, headache, and sore throat, but I kept about, took my meals as usual, and worked for myself in Christian Science. At bedtime a great sense of peace came to me, —I felt perfectly free, and have been ever since. Twice since then vertigo and cramps, from both of which I used to suffer badly, have vanished instantaneously as the thought came to me, "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being." Christian Science has, besides all this, done very much for me financially; from having no means but what I earned, I have now a small but sufficient income for all my needs. I think greatest of all its many blessings is the reopening of the Bible in the light of Truth. It is now a perpetual, living joy.
