On first coming into Christian Science, I used to hunt eagerly through the testimonies for cases like my own, and it is with the hope that this account may help all sufferers from so-called organic heart disease, that I give my experience. A little over two years ago it seemed that I had come nearly to the end of hope. I had never been in robust health, and several years ago my case was finally diagnosed by a leading specialist of this city as an organic affection of the heart. This condition affected seemingly my whole body. I suffered from long-standing and grievous bowel trouble, also an affection of the bladder, and more lately was seized at night with acute attacks of illness. I had various other ailments, all due. I was told, to bad circulation. I took medicine copiously, dieted as I was directed by one physician, and used exercise and hygiene according to the rules of another. I tried in every way I knew to better my condition, and all the time drove myself to do my many duties, for I could not bear to give up; but it seemed that I was coming to the end, for in June, 1908, I was so weak that I had to he taken out in a chair for fresh air. The doctors had told me that my trouble was absolutely incurable, but that with care I might live on indefinitely.
Christian Science had been suggested to me in three different instances, but I was in that state which I find prevalent among some of my acquaintances. "I know all about Christian Science," I would declare calmly, "and I cannot believe in it." What I knew about it, I have since found out, was only the erroneous and malicious reports published in various magazines and newspapers concerning it, and it was one of these that kept me out of this great happiness for two years. At last, however, I heard an indisputable account of a case of tubercular disease which had been healed by Christian Science. I could hardly believe it, but later on I heard of other cases of healing which could not be denied: so, on the grudging basis that it could not hurt me if it did not help me, I sought a practitioner, and told her at the start that if one must have faith in Science to be helped, I might as well not begin.
From this point I find it hard to write dispassionately of what occurred. The healing of a minor ailment I felt to be nothing more or less than a miracle; but I was cognizant that here was a great, good law, and I went after it with all my might. I had my ups and downs, for I could not accept statements without a struggle, but must see the why and wherefore, the in and out of everything, and reason must be convinced before the allegiance necessary to successful self-treatment could be avowed. Although in some ways my healing might have been deemed slow, to me it was all so good and glorious that it seemed sometimes that the happiness I had found must be almost wrong. I asked the practitioner if there was such a thing as being too happy, and she assured me there was not. This came first when I found God to be good. It then seemed that all the chains were broken from my spirit, for that was the concept of God I had always loved and longed for; and while I had always loved God, still it hurt my thought of Him to believe that He was the author of sorrow and suffering. Then to know and believe and prove that I was going to be well! To be like other people, able to walk and run and do all the things I had so sorrowfully renounced— well, I know what a condemned prisoner experiences when he is not only reprieved but set free!
