To express my profound gratitude for healing received, and in the hope that my words may bring relief to others who are suffering, this testimonial is given. With joy and humility I desire to make my first public words on this subject the acknowledgment of my error and injustice expressed in days past by thought and word against Christian Science and its Discoverer and Founder. Without any acquaintance with Mrs. Eddy or understanding of her teaching, I repeatedly in public, as well as in private, assailed both. Now, knowing more of that Mind which was in Christ Jesus, I am writing with ardent desire that perhaps some one who without knowledge harshly judges Christian Science, may be guided into the way of that charity which "thinketh no evil." In respect to religious affiliation I have not been an ecclesiastical wanderer. Forty years have been passed in one orthodox Christian body, thirty-four of those years being spent in its ministry. I loved my church and served it with a zeal born of conscientious conviction, for through God this church was to me a restraining and sustaining power, and meant
The world's great altar-stairs,
Which led through darkness up to God.
Looking back over that period, I now understand that, although I was conscious of the divine presence and help, I yet saw God as "through a glass, darkly," for by my training and vows I was compelled to acknowledge Him as the author of evil,—of sin, sickness, and death,—and the creator of a competitor to His throne,—an evil intelligence called the devil. Having accepted and taught these declarations as true, I now know that they obscured my concept of God so that I could not "see him as he is;" and that their pall lay heavy on my heart in spite of the solace and strength which came to me day by day.
