I cannot refrain from giving my testimony of what Christian Science has done for me. I have been studying this truth since August, 1907, and am now in business for myself. Six years ago I had a severe attack of illness. After the doctors had failed to diagnose my case correctly, and my family physician had kept me filled up with an opiate for over a week, I was in such a condition that I had to be placed in confinement. My wife and a gentleman from the mayor's office took me to an adjacent town, where I stayed at a so-called rest-cure for some time. I finally returned here, in a sort of dazed condition, but able to work in the office of a large manufacturing concern, where I had previously been located for sixteen years, except a year and a half which I had spent with a big firm at Dayton, O., as manager of the cost and employment departments. I state these facts to show that. my positions were important and executive.
My condition during the next five years was just like one serving in a trance, and in June, 1907, through pressure, the president of the concern said it was necessary to reduce their force and let me out. A friend secured me temporary employment with the president of a large university in this vicinity. I went to him on August 6, and worked part of a day, then went to the house where I was to live, ate my supper, and finally retired. During the night I had a second attack of the illness from which I had suffered before. The physician who waited upon me had me taken that night to the sanitarium where I had been before, and the next morning my wife came and took me home. I had no sooner arrived home than I sought a friend (not a Christian Scientist) and secured a letter of introduction from him to a Christian Science practitioner. From the time that I met the practitioner there began within me an absolutely new sense of life. I had been afflicted for twenty-five years with severe eye trouble, and wore glasses at all times, as I was "at sea" without them. I took off my glasses as soon as I understood that God is "a very present help," and have never worn them since.
I had been subject to nervous and stomach trouble since boyhood, and suffered for twelve years with hernia, for which I had worn a truss, but I took this off the same day that I did my glasses. I threw a pocketful of cigars out the practitioner's window that day, and have never touched tobacco since. The nervous ailment had produced a serious kidney trouble, generally believed incurable. This, however, left me immediately, although there were trifling troubles which required attention for months. A friend often said I would always be afflicted this way, from the fact that previous to eight years ago I had been a confirmed drinker, but this habit was taken from me and I have never wanted liquor from that day. This I now realize was an act of divine mercy, and since so much was done for me at once through Christian Science, can I doubt that God is good? No, never! The habit of profanity has also left me, and I never permit an oath to pass my lips. I endeavor to keep consciousness filled at all times with the thought of Life, Truth, and Love.
