Seventeen years ago I took up the study of Christian Science, after twelve years of suffering from what physicians said was the effect of poisoning from vaccination. It had affected my spine and a complication of diseases had arisen, such as neuralgia, rheumatism, stomach trouble, enlargement of the liver, and almost total blindness and loss of bodily activity. I had tried "many things of many physicians," but from year to year gradually grew worse. Then a doctor, a personal friend, told me it was no use for me to take medicine, as it did me no good; and, in fact, it never had benefited me any. He had only one suggestion to offer, and that was for me to leave my old environment and go to some other part of the country. He did not make the suggestion that I go to any particular climate. I decided to go to the Pacific Coast; but after being there a few weeks and resorting to treatment which had relieved me at times before, I grew much worse and felt as if there were no hope.
It was at this time that Christian Science was presented to me, and the invitation given me to attend church. I shall never forget the peace that came over me at my first attendance at a service in a Christian Science church. I took up the study of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, called on a practitioner for help three times, and then went about working out my own salvation through the study and application of the divine truths as revealed through Christian Science. Soon I was healed of the tobacco habit and of the wearing of glasses, both of twenty or more years' standing. My eyesight was soon better than ever before, and one after another the false beliefs disappeared. In about eight months we returned East, and for about five years we continued to work out our freedom in a part of the country where there was no Christian Science church and but little was known of this religion. About eleven years ago we moved to the city where we now live, and from that time have been active in church work.
Words fail to express my gratitude for what Christian Science has meant to me in the years since I first heard of it, for I had suffered so long I had almost come to the place where I doubted if there was a God. Christian Science revealed God to me as Love, and this was the ray of light with which I started on my journey from sense to Soul. I am grateful for all the activities of The Mother Church and its branches, and especially grateful for the privilege of serving in a branch church. I am giving this testimony that it may bring a ray of hope to those who may seem to be in the valley of despair, as I was; for Christian Science, as revealed by our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, is the sovereign panacea for all the ills to which flesh is believed to be heir.— Columbus, Ohio.
