More than nineteen hundred years ago a man lame from birth was healed instantly by the spiritual understanding of Peter and John. He went "walking, and leaping, and praising God" (Acts 3:8). I wish to tell of my healing through the spiritual understanding of a Christian Science practitioner; for this healing was almost as remarkable as that of the lame man, and I too was enabled to go "walking, and leaping, and praising God."
One morning while crossing the street I was run over by an automobile. A traffic officer took me in an unconscious condition to an emergency hospital, where my condition was said to be beyond anything that could be done for me there. Then I was taken to a general hospital, where four physicians said that nothing could save me.
The officer who was at the scene of the accident found my identification papers and notified the principal of the school where I was teaching. The principal, a fellow Christian Scientist, immediately telephoned to a practitioner. On the seventh day, when I first awoke to consciousness, I was able to eat easily, although X rays showed that both jaws had been broken, and two teeth were almost out. The hospital workers had not set any bones nor wired the teeth. Years later a dentist pointed to the two teeth and said that these two were by far the best teeth I had.
In spite of the doctor's remonstrance that I could not live if moved, the consecrated work of the practitioner enabled me to be taken away from the hospital. I was placed in a small sanatorium for Christian Scientists. On the third day I used an arm that had been broken in three places and wrote to a friend. Soon I wrote the practitioner a letter of many pages.
A condition of numbness in the head, the result of the penetration of a rod into the head, was also healed. "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding" (Phil. 4: 7) surrounded and upheld me.
After four weeks I visited the practitioner in her quiet mountain home. When it came time to retire, I remarked that a strange though painless feeling had come over both legs. A friend who was present requested me to carry a cane that was in the room. As we were walking to the nearby cabin, which I would occupy, my feet and legs suddenly lost all feeling. Greatly surprised I leaned heavily on the cane, wondering whether I should hold my balance or fall.
Earnestly desiring to follow the practitioner, who had hurried on ahead, I tried to lift one foot and step forth. As I stepped, I felt as though a huge dark cloud had lifted from consciousness. Putting the cane under one arm, I ran to the cabin; and leaping over two steps, I stood on the porch beside the practitioner. "There isn't anything the matter with your legs, is there!" she said, laughing.
Five weeks later I returned to my work at school and took up increased duties as a teacher. Learning of my healing through Christian Science, the hospital physician exclaimed, astonished, "I take off my hat to Christian Science."
I am deeply appreciative of the unfaltering work of the Christian Science practitioner. And I am inexpressibly grateful for Christian Science and for its beloved Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, who says (I Cor. 15:57), "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."— Portland, Oregon.
