It is with a heart filled with gratitude for the healing power of Truth as taught in Christian Science that I send this testimony. It is about thirteen years since I first asked for help from a practitioner for a severe nervous breakdown. I was in a very weak condition and unable to do any work. The doctor said that he had done all he could do, and that it would be years before I would be strong enough to do anything. About three months after having help in Christian Science I was doing the greater part of my household duties; and in less than a year I was doing things normally and feeling stronger than I had felt for three years, and was much happier. Since that time Christian Science has been our only physician.
Two healings which will always stand out as beacon lights to us I should like to record. About four years ago, while we were living in a small town in Georgia, a still filled with boiling oil, weighing about one and a half tons, exploded when my husband was right under it. It threw him several yards. He landed on his right leg, the oil going over the other leg and part of his back. During the confusion no one had noticed where my husband was. He applied the truth as we are taught, and, declaring God's allness, got up and walked out to the door. On seeing what had happened the men wanted to rush him to a hospital, but he insisted on being brought home, and as it was his own place of business his wishes were carried out. His clothes were cut off and he was helped to bed. The leg was crushed and torn for quite eight inches. The man who brought him home begged me to let him go for help, but I told him we had all the help we needed, and that if he would go back and attend to things and say nothing of what he had seen he would help us more than he knew. Christian Science treatment was given for two weeks, not another thing being used but water and clean cloths. In five weeks I drove him to the factory and he stayed for quite a while; after another week he started to attend to the business. But for a slight scar he knows no difference, and for the past three years he has been on his feet more than ever before.
The other experience is a sure proof that, as Mrs. Eddy says on page 162 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule." Three years ago I began to have severe pains in the muscles and joints, together with stiffness and inflammation. I tried to handle this myself, but it grew worse, so I asked for help from a practitioner. The pain lessened and great relief was experienced, but the stiffness and the other condition did not yield and I became almost helpless, as the ligaments were drawn out of shape. Many weeks having been spent in bed or on a couch I became very weak, and twice my husband called for the practitioner to come to the house as it seemed as though I were passing on; but not once did we question the power and might of God as taught in the Bible and Science and Health. One morning while studying the Lesson-Sermon from the Christian Science Quarterly I came across these words in Science and Health (p. 368): "Neither evil, disease, nor death can be spiritual, and the material belief in them disappears in the ratio of one's spiritual growth." The last six words rang in my thought all day. There was the complete answer, and it was for me to prove it. From that day I strove, through prayer, to get entirely away from any thought of physical healing to spiritual understanding, with the result that on December 9, 1928, I put on my shoes for the first time in several months and went to a Christian Science lecture; and I attended the services again. Day by day more and more freedom was manifested and I again helped with my household duties. Finally the complete healing was accomplished, strength and right activity being restored.
