I am sincerely grateful to Christian Science for the healing of a severe illness from which I had suffered for about fifteen years. For some time I had dieted and had been given injections, medicines, and other forms of treatment by various physicians because of digestive disturbances, accompanied by convulsive stomach and intestinal pain, as well as by fever. The difficulty became so serious in 1939 that I was completely incapacitated for work. I had to give up my position as manager of a business concern, a position which I had held for twenty-five years. For six weeks I was unable to take nourishment of any kind and was greatly emaciated. Also I suffered much from restlessness of thought, which robbed me of sleep for a whole year.
After an operation and hospital care for three months my condition was still the same, and I was therefore taken to a clinic for the treatment of nervous diseases. I came home from the clinic bereft of hope, pronounced incurable by the physicians, and tormented by thoughts of suicide. The members of my family knew of nothing more that could be done to help me.
At that time an acquaintance brought us a copy of The Herald of Christian Science (German Edition), assuring me that if I read it and held to the thoughts it presented, I would be able to work again. Since I was too weak to read, my wife read aloud to me each day from the testimonies of healing. They were like rays of light in deepest darkness, and yet I could not understand how in my case a healing could come about. We asked for the help of a Christian Science practitioner, who told me that I must change my thinking and rely wholly upon the divine healing power. My confidence in a new method of healing was slight, but the practitioner was tireless in her efforts to help me. In six weeks I plucked up courage to attend a Wednesday testimony meeting at a Church of Christ, Scientist. The testimonies of healing awakened in me new hope, and I began to study in earnest the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
