Sometimes we have experiences from which we do not get the full import until in after years. Recently, while I was thinking over past experiences and the lessons they have taught, my attention was particularly called to the statement on page 147 of the Christian Science textbook. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, which says: "Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian healing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to his students; but he left no definite rule for demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered in Christian Science."
About sixteen years before I heard of Christian Science, I had a continued spell of illness, during which medical aid was exhausted, including the services of a specialist; and then I was told that I had but two months to live. Realizing that earthly help had failed, I turned to the divine, though at that time I did not know that there had been a single case of Christian healing since the time of Christ Jesus and his disciples. Neither did I have any encouragement from the church of which I was a member. I was told that the days of miracles had gone. But turning to the Bible, the book I had learned to love, I read of many cases of healing in both the Old and the New Testament. Apart from the individual healings in the Old, the Psalmist said, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." And our Saviour healed all manner of diseases, and taught his followers to do the same. He said he always did that which pleased the Father. This was enough. In twenty-four hours I noticed something unusual had happened: God had healed me. I am grateful for this healing. It saved my life. It was perfect and permanent. This healing occurred in 1880.
Now, when I look back to this healing with a better understanding, I can see that it carried with it no general betterment of health, as has been the case since coming to Christian Science—only the healing of that single disease. There was no knowledge of how this was done, other than mere faith; no rule to go by; so when I was again at death's door and was unable to repeat the former faith, like a drowning man grasping at a straw I again grasped materia medica. It utterly failed. I do not look upon these failures now with any regret, because, at that very moment there was an angel visitor knocking at my door, as it knocks at the door of every sufferer to-day, and I knew it not. But I soon found this visitor was Christian Science. Even its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, was in the home and I knew it not, until a member of the household, a beginner in Christian Science, who was quietly reading this book, seeing my plight, handed it to me; and while I was reading it, I was instantly healed.
