When I read the testimonies in the Journal and Sentinel and receive so much help from them, I feel that I must send mine, as it may help some one who thinks that his healing is long delayed. After eighteen years of suffering —taking medicine constantly, employing six physicians, and receiving only temporary relief, —as a last resort I was sent to the West to see what change of climate could do for me. Several months went by, and my condition becoming worse I again resorted to medical treatment. A specialist on throat and lung diseases said after three months' treatment that he could do nothing for me, that I must live in Canada or Maine and must not stay in California, as I could not live long if I did so.
Hope gone, I was in despair; but while in this unhappy state a neighbor called on me and asked if I was still under, medical treatment. When I told her what the last physician had said, she replied that I could get well, and lent me "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I read the book night and day, trying to understand it, but could only hold to one line: "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings" (Pref., p. vii). This seemed to lift a heavy load from me. A lady who was a student of Christian Science offered her help, which I accepted gladly, and under her treatment, with the help of other practitioners when she was out of town, I gained slowly but surely. When sleep came without the use of an opiate I was indeed grateful.
Many erroneous conditions were overcome. I became more patient, thought less of self, temper left, and there was such a change in me that my husband started reading Science and Health also, to see what was helping me. Stomach and bowel disorders from which I had suffered since childhood, heart trouble, chronic cough, colds, sore throat, sick headache, extreme nervousness, the drug habit (the result of taking opiates for relief from asthma),—all these were holding me in bondage. When told I had tubercular disease of the throat, the thing I feared most had come upon me. This last named condition was the only one I spoke about to the practitioners; the others seemed such fixtures that I never thought I could be free of them, but all were overcome in a year. To be well and able to work hard, to be able to do as others without becoming ill for weeks, was indeed wonderful to me. The purification of thought was, however, that for which I felt most grateful. For more than five years I have enjoyed these many blessings.
