I am pleased to testify to the good I have received from Christian Science. I purchased a copy of Science and Health to see what it taught on theology. I had given up my faith in orthodoxy many years before, and had never since found anything that satisfied my longing. I commenced to read the "little book," but had not gone far before I felt like throwing it aside. Nevertheless there was something about it that seemed to hold me, and I kept on reading. This was in the summer of 1904. and one day I seemed to wake up to the fact that I had not smoked for some days, and had lost the appetite for tobacco altogether. This was very remarkable to me, because I had been using tobacco for about forty years, and at different times I had tried to give it up, but always found it too much for me. At one time I quit it for eleven months, at another for five months, and for numerous shorter periods, but each time the craving was so great that I concluded to take to it again. I had even used a drug in order to make it easier to break away from the habit, yet I kept on smoking in spite of myself. I had been seemingly enslaved, and when I found myself free from the appetite without any conscious effort, I knew it was the reading of Science and Health that had done it. I have never had the least desire to use tobacco since.
I will relate another proof of the power of Christian Science. For years I and another man had been at enmity. We were both engaged in the same line of business and I felt that he often did things to obstruct and injure me, and he thought I did things to hurt him, so that we were very bitter toward each other. It so happened that I was in Denver visiting a lady who was a Christian Scientist, and she handed me a copy of "miscellaneous Writings" by Mrs. Eddy, and asked me to read an article entitled "Love Your Enemies." I was deeply impressed with its logic, and as my understanding was opened to the truth therein taught, all sense of enmity left me, and I knew that I could love the man for whom I had felt such hatred a few minutes before. It so happened that I stayed in Denver over Sunday, and on Monday when I got home the first thing my wife said was; "Who do you think has been here?" and I learned that this man had come six miles to my home to ask me to let bygones be bygones and to be friends. Since then he has eaten at my table and I at his, and today we love each other, thank God!
But the blessing for which I am most grateful is the mental healing. For a long time I was melancholy and discouraged, and life to me seemed not worth the living. I could give no reason for this feeling, as I was doing well financially and everything was all right in my home, and yet I was full of trouble and gloomy thoughts which seemed to hold me in possession so that at times I reasoned with myself as to why I should not end it all. It was for this trouble that I applied to a Christian Science practitioner for help, and although the healing was slow, it lame gradually, and today I am no longer despondent, for I know that life is worth living and I am happy because I have found the truth that makes men free. For all these blessings, and many others, I am thankful to God, also to our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy.
