A Recent article in the Sentinel brought to mind a realization of the amount of healing, formative, and constructive work which just one Christian Science Sentinel may accomplish. Some years ago a woman in Denver was healed of a so-called incurable disease through Christian Science treatment, and in her gratitude sent her son, who was in the Government service and stationed on the island of Java, a copy of the Sentinel, telling him to read it carefully. When the mail which contained both the letter telling of his mother's healing and the copy of the Sentinel was delivered to him, he was at the dinner table in a family hotel. After reading the letter he said his mother must have lost her mind, and threw the Sentinel into the wastebasket, with the remark that he would have nothing to do with such literature.
At that dinner table was a woman who had been a semi-invalid all her life and had exhausted all known medical means without finding health. On passing the wastebasket on her way to her room she picked up this Sentinel, wondering how any son could throw away a loving mother's gift without even looking at it. As she held the periodical in her hands she glanced over it and her eyes fell on a passage which stated that if God is Love and we as His image and likeness reflect good only, because God is good and fills all space, there is no space left for sickness, heartache, or despair. This impressed her as being so beautiful and so reasonable that she lived on it for several days and read and reread the Sentinel from cover to cover, learning for the first time of Christian Science and the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and that through the reading of this book people were healed. She finally decided to purchase a copy, and immediately sent for it. Eighty-six days passed before it arrived at its destination in Java, and every day seemed a month, so anxious was she to know what the book contained; but the truth in the Sentinel had fulfilled its mission, for she was entirely healed by what she grasped of the basic teaching of Christian Science ere the copy of Science and Health reached her.
From this one healing a Christian Science Society was started in Batavia, Java, and has since spread to several other towns, where the Lesson-Sermon is read daily and healing work is being done. Later the parents of this lady who was healed removed to Holland, and in two different towns there they have been the means through which societies have been formed. A recent letter from this dear student tells of steady progress and faithful work in our beloved cause throughout her entire experience since the truth came to her through that copy of the Sentinel.
