I am glad to tell of the many blessings and proofs of God's loving care and protection which I have received through Christian Science. It healed me of a so-called incurable disease after medicine had failed. I was the youngest of a family of children, of whom six had passed on before reaching the age of seven years. From my birth no one expected me to live long, as I was a frail, sickly child. Our family physician said: "This child has no vitality, no strength. She has inherited this from her father. She must be kept out of doors in the air and sunshine, if she lives." So I practically grew up out of doors. I could never play or attend school regularly like other children. At four years I had pneumonia, which left my lungs weak and sensitive. I was doctored nearly all the time. Finally I grew to womanhood and was married, much to the sorrow of my parents, as they feared I had not long to live. Four years later I had pneumonia again, followed by nervous prostration. I was constantly under the doctor's care, with a nurse most of the time for a year. One day I asked the physician if I were ever going to get well, and insisted he tell me the truth. He said, after much persuasion: "You can never be well again. No medicine on earth can cure you, but by constant care I will keep you here as long as I can." Then we called another physician, and then a third one both likewise saying they could do nothing more.
At this time a cousin living in the West wrote that she had received much help from Christian Science, and urged me to try it. All I had ever heard about Christian Science was against it. I thought it some new fad, and was very much prejudiced against it; but my husband and sister, although having no especial faith in it, urged me to try it; and I finally did, much against my will. When I saw the practitioner I said: "I want you to fully understand me. I do not believe in Christian Science. I do not believe in you or that you can cure me. I only try you to please my husband and my sister." Then she asked so gently, "You believe in God?" I indignantly replied, "Of course I do!" Then she quietly and lovingly talked to me of Christian Science. I can never repay her for her loving, tender patience in leading me forward, awaking me to see and understand my real self. The healing was slow but sure. I was of the old New England type; and I seemed to have to prove every step I took. And had not the doctors said I had consumption and a tumor in 1897!
Words fail to express my gratitude to God, to our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, and to my practitioner and class teacher, for all these years of health and happiness which I have enjoyed since my healing, and that in a measure I have been able to help others.— Cumberland Mills, Maine.
