For several years I have been encouraged and benefited in many ways by the testimonies which others have lovingly provided for our periodicals and in our Wednesday evening meetings, and I have now through my own experience come to some appreciation of the fact that "testimony in regard to the healing of the sick is highly important" (Church Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 24).
As a boy I was troubled with stomach disorders and hereditary catarrh, and appeared to be always open to suggestions of discouragement and despondency. The difficulties of those early years at home and in school yielded to the understanding of Christian Science gained by my older sisters and imparted to me. Later, while I was living in western Canada, one of my horses was healed of lameness and of a bad disposition; and I was healed of what a dentist of long experience told me was the worst case of necrosis he had ever seen. Christian Science practitioners in the nearest city, about a hundred miles away, worked for me on these problems.
During the epidemic following the world war, influenza was overcome in a way which made a great impression on me because of the quickness and thoroughness of the healing. At this time we were again living in an eastern city, and after being unable to leave the house or eat anything substantial for several days I decided to go to see a practitioner about three blocks away. After walking that short distance painfully and with a sense of great effort I asked for a treatment, which was given at once while I sat reading our Leader's article entitled "Contagion" found in "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 228, 229). In a few minutes, feeling perfectly well and normal in every way, but perhaps in doubt whether it could really be true, I went out of the office and started on a walk which continued without fatigue or discomfort on that cold, icy winter day to the top of a small mountain two miles out of the city, my steps joyous with the new assurance of God's power and presence which this quick healing had brought me. Returning home I ate a hearty supper, to the astonishment and against the advice of those around me, and the next morning reported for my regular work.
