A HEALING in Christian Science is the most wonderful and gracious experience possible to men on earth. It is the sure sign to one of Immanuel, God with us; the Christ in evidence, or, as defined by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583), it is "the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." A Christian Science healing demonstrates that man is spiritual. It reveals the fact that God is Mind, that He is one and All, and that this Mind is reflected by man. It satisfies the one healed that God is Love, ready to meet his particular need, yes, every human need.
The man who has experienced healing in Christian Science sees the utter refutation of the belief in disease as cause or effect. He has witnessed the disproof, in degree, of the presence and power of the devil, so called, error of every name and nature. He has thus learned not to be afraid, because there is nothing to be afraid of. He knows, just as Job came to know, that his redeemer liveth, that while yet in his flesh he shall see God. He is glad to learn that he has always at hand a very present help in time of trouble. He trustingly accedes to the wisdom of the rule promulgated by Jesus, that we should always seek first "the kingdom of God, and his righteousness."
My experience in Christian Science, an experience covering some fourteen years, began with healing. A biography of my life throughout these years would chronicle a long list of deliverances from bondage, and but for one, and possibly more, of these deliverances, I would certainly not be here to tell the tale,— to express my confidence in Christian Science, my love for our revered Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and my hope and faith in God.
Christian Science came to my attention through a much-loved friend who had been healed, and with the first breathings of its message of purity and goodness came deliverance from a habit of profanity; this being laid off like a soiled cloak. One bright Sunday morning in early summer I received, by following the advice of this same friend, my first Christian Science treatment. I was suffering from a severe cold, chronic with me as far back as my memory goes. About noon I realized that the cold and its numerous manifestations had entirely disappeared.
While detained in a Detroit hotel by an acute attack of lung trouble, which came up during a water trip from Buffalo to Duluth, I was instantaneously healed by absent treatment. My wife, who then knew no Scientists outside of the East, finding me unconscious and delirious, telegraphed to a Christian Science practitioner in New York for treatment, with the result that we resumed our trip the following day. A previous experience with pneumonia, under medical treatment, had proved nearly fatal, the attending physician having summoned my father from a distant city at a moment when life was despaired of. Weeks of convalescence in one case, and immediate recovery under Christian Science treatment in the other, were strikingly contrasted in these experiences; and I distinctly remember that the physician predicted sure death in case of a second attack of this trouble.
As a result of this healing I experienced a wonderful quickening, spiritually; got a new view-point from which to work out life's problems; acquired new and higher motives. I lost, at the same time, all desire for tobacco, although I had been in great bondage to it in all its forms for many years. The use of intoxicants was also abandoned from this time on.
Other and equally important results have followed one after the other as I have applied the teaching of Christian Science to my daily living. Business matters, quite as much as physical and moral conditions, have come in for their share of right adjustment and advancement under the law of God, the law of Love. It is fair to say that the only times and the only concerns which I may look back upon reluctantly, since I first learned of Christian Science, are the ones I have failed to submit to the divine Principle revealed and practised according to the rule in Christian Science. Whatever I have taken up Christianly, scientifically, unselfishly, lovingly, since I became interested in this truth, has worked out to the glory of God and man. Each time I have so worked, I have been made more willing and glad to do as Paul says we should do, "put off the old man with his deeds," conscious of man's God-given capacity to "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."
There is abundant reason for gratitude on my part to Mrs. Eddy and her many loyal, true followers, for the personal help I have received, and for the gain of a more practical understanding of God and love for Him. I am feeling a deep sense of this gratitude, and some of the joy of appreciation of the good works of others well done; and this is a sign to me of present progress.— New York, N. Y.
