I am very grateful for the privilege of testifying to the healing and saving power of Christian Science. When I walked into a Christian Science Reading Room in London, England, over seven years ago, it was at a time in my life when I had lost sight of God, and seemed to be without hope in the world. About six months before this I had undergone an operation for what had been diagnosed as appendicitis, thinking that this would relieve a poisoned condition of my system, an acute state of indigestion, and a very severe nervous depression and heart strain; but no help was gained through this measure.
In spite of all my disappointments and misery I still thought that medical treatment was the only help available for sickness. Then my eyes troubled me to such an extent that I was finally obliged to see a doctor about them. This doctor said that I had so serious a condition of astigmatism that unless something could be done at once he feared I might go blind, and he knew of only one doctor in England who could help me. I telephoned to this eye specialist's house, but found that he was out of town and not expected back for two weeks. It was at this dark hour that I walked into a Christian Science Reading Room and asked the librarian if there was anyone who could tell me something of Christian Science, for, although I knew nothing about it myself, I felt there must be help somewhere, and I also felt that I had been divinely guided to ask for it there.
The librarian very kindly gave me the names of some Christian Science practitioners in that district. She also offered me the loan of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, and gave me a copy of The Christian Science Journal. When I left the Reading Room I called at the offices of two of the practitioners near by, but it was late in the afternoon and I found neither of their offices open; so with my precious stock of literature I went home and read one testimony in the Journal. It was written by a young man, who related how he had been healed of locomotor ataxia after being sent home from India to die. His testimony was so full of truth that a great joy came to me when I realized that there was to-day a spiritual power which had healed this disease. I seemed to be able to share in the abundance of gratitude which the young man had expressed in his testimony, and I awoke to the fact that if Christian Science could heal him it could heal me of my trouble also. I telephoned to a practitioner's house the next morning; and again I was guided, for this practitioner's mother gave me instructions as to how I might reach her daughter's office. I can never express in words my gratitude for the many healings which the work of this practitioner has brought to me. My joy at this first interview to hear that God was a God of love so lifted me up that I felt freed of some enormous burden; for up to that time I had thought of God as a God who would be kind and merciful to us when we reached Him, but this I thought could only come about by dying.
