I offer this testimony in deepest gratitude and in the hope of helping someone else who is searching for Truth.
I first heard about Christian Science in Portland, Oregon, in 1910. With a friend who was seeking healing I began to attend the Sunday services and Wednesday testimony meetings.
In 1914 I had a return of a throat ailment, a chronic hoarseness to which I had been subject since childhood. I could not speak above a whisper. As application of medicine to the throat was without result, the physician recommended a change of climate. My circumstances at that time did not permit this, so I went home in a greatly embittered mood. The neighbor with whom I used to go to the Christian Science church, although she was not a member, recommended that inasmuch as I had tried everything else, I now try Christian Science. As I did not own any of the books and knew only what I had gleaned from listening to the services in the church, I did not know that Christian Science was to be practiced through the daily study of the Bible and of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. At one of the Reading Rooms we were able to borrow a copy of Science and Health. After six weeks of study I was completely healed. For this I am unendingly grateful to God, and to Mrs. Eddy for having shown me this way.
Some years later I returned to my native Hungary, to the city of Budapest. At that time we found no other Christian Scientists there, but with my husband I continued my daily study of the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly and the regular reading of the Christian Science periodicals.
One day I was attacked by sudden illness. I was helpless, unable to move. There being no Christian Science practitioner near, and the local law requiring the attendance of a physician, I was taken to a sanatorium. When the physician in charge looked at me, he advised that I be taken home, as he did not wish me to die in his sanatorium. I overheard this and said to him, "Don't be afraid; I shall not die." After that I was given a room. That same day I wrote to a Christian Science practitioner in Portland, Oregon, and asked for help. I was given no medicine, but stayed at the sanatorium, for I had nowhere else to go. Through the loving help of the practitioner I was restored to health in about two months. Many times a day I repeated, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [love] is with me" (Science and Health, p. 578).
Since then Christian Science has been my only help in every situation. The passing on of a loved one was made bearable through Mrs. Eddy's answer to the question (ibid., pp. 468, 469), "What is Life?"
In 1944, during the bombardment, I spent most of my time in my room trying to prove God's ever-presence. When fleeing from the occupying forces, I hid in our storeroom in the basement with my two little wards, and a soldier found us. I tried to see him as the perfect idea of God, the man God created. He held me by the hand and talked to me, but we did not understand each other. Finally he let go my hand, went out, and shut the door. This was at eight in the evening. We remained in the storeroom until ten o'clock, at which time the systematic robbing of the storerooms began. The three of us were locked in. What would happen, I thought, if the men should break down our door and find us? Then I remembered the testimony of a woman whose house by the sea was threatened by a storm and who said to the waves (Job 38:11), "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." I too repeated these words in the face of these waves of error. Eight storerooms were broken open and emptied of all clothes and everything useful. The eighth was right next to where we were hiding. There the looters stopped. We were not touched, nor were any of the other storerooms entered. The next morning the people assembled to see their storerooms, for they had been forbidden to come out of the shelters during the plundering. When they heard us calling them, they opened our door and found us alive. They scolded us, for, they said, hiding in the storeroom might have cost us our lives. But I knew that our lives were "hid with Christ in God."
That "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (Science and Health, p. 494) has since been proved in my daily experience.
I am deeply grateful to God for all the good I have received through the understanding of Christian Science. I am grateful that I can be a member of The Mother Church and an active member of a local society. Only those who have endured suffering and fear can appreciate my gratitude to Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. I am also grateful for the help which all the members of The Mother Church are rendering to war-torn humanity through their material contributions.— Budapest, Hungary.
