I AM so filled with gratitude and love to God, and to Mrs. Eddy for the healing truth taught in "Science and Health with Key to the. Scriptures," that I send my testimony to the Journal, hoping that it will help some one who needs this healing. I had been a very sick woman for several years, and had been treated at different times by six kind physicians. Each time that I changed doctors I would feel encouraged, as I seemed to improve for a while; then the 'medicine ceased to help me, and my condition was growing worse all the time.
It went on this way for six or eight years, and my family became very much discouraged, thinking I could live only a short time. I kept the Bible near my bed, and as I read where it tells that Jesus healed the people, I wondered why we could not have this healing now. One day the physician who was then attending me called to see how I was getting on. as he often did when passing the house. I asked him what he thought my trouble was, and he named a supposedly incurable disease. After this I began to get worse, but when my relatives urged me to have the doctor, I refused, as I felt that I never wanted to see him again.
At this time I did not know anything of Christian Science, but one day a lady who was boarding in the next house brought me some Christian Science literature, which I read, and the reading of that literature helped me, although I did not recognize it then. I was soon out of bed. and during several weeks I sought a surer way of healing than I had thus far found in medical treatment. I now believe that God. divine Mind, was gently leading me out of darkness into light, as after various experiments I finally went to see the lady who had given me the Christian Science tracts. I told her of my search for the truth, and she said. "I have a book here, and many people have been healed just by reading it." This was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. I went home very much encouraged, yet with some hesitancy. The tracts had shown me that Christian Science is a religion of love, and I had never expressed much love to any one. I laid down the "little book," which was Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, while I prayed for divine guidance; then I opened the Bible for my answer, as I often did in those days. The Bible opened at the 12th chapter of i Corinthians, and I read it through, but did not feel I had my answer until I came to the last sentence of the last verse, "And yet I show unto you a more excellent way;" and then followed the chapter on love.
