No one can be more grateful for Christian Science than I am. My parents turned to it for healing while I was still in my infancy, and I have had the continuous blessing and protection of its teaching ever since.
About twenty years ago I experienced what was called a miraculous healing by all who knew of the circumstances. While staging a Christmas play, at the last minute I had to take the role of Santa Claus, and as I was removing bags of candy and nuts from a candle-lit tree I suddenly heard someone cry out, "She is on fire!" As I looked to see what had occurred I saw people pointing at me. When I looked down at my costume I saw that the cotton trimming on it was afire. It flared up quickly, and my first impulse was to run for water. I found myself in an open doorway with the wind fanning the flames up into my face, so I began to beat them away from my neck and hair with my hands. As soon as some members in the audience saw what was taking place, they grabbed what they could to wrap around me and smother the flames, but the wind from the doorway made it almost impossible for them to extinguish the fire. Then as I looked up to God for help, I gazed out across the snow-covered ground, and at that instant the Christ, Truth, came to me so clearly that I knew at once that nothing could take my life away from me, that even if my body should seem to burn to death, I should keep right on living in God's good universe.
Fear having been thus stilled, the flames quickly died down and were easily put out. However, both my hands had been burned to a state of uselessness clear to the wrists, and there were also minor burns on my neck and body. Material remedies were offered to ease the pain, but I had been brought up in a Christian Science Sunday School and waved all such assistance aside, asking only to be taken to my boarding place, where I could call a practitioner. When I reached this person and told her what had occurred she began the work, and I paced the floor repeating "Daily Prayer" in the Church Manual (Art. VIII, Sect. 4), and anything else I could remember. Within about an hour all sensation of pain vanished and did not return during the entire experience.
