When quite a young woman, I sojourned with a farm family on the prairie of a northern state. Winter temperatures had dropped many degrees below zero. Nearest neighbors were two miles distant in each direction. On this particular evening the farm family had gone to visit friends and remain all night with them, leaving me alone to stoke the fires and catch up on some study. I had been a pupil in a Christian Science Sunday School and had been brought up according to the teachings of this religion.
Shortly after the family's departure, a man came to the door. He entered on a pretext. It soon became evident he was inebriated. He grabbed my wrist and locked the door, putting the key in his pocket. His violent words indicated my end was near. Nauseated with fear, I tried to reason with the man but to no avail.
Then suddenly I looked at the window and the dense blackness outside, and the thought dawned, "If there is a God—and there is—I shall escape." Instantly the right words came to me to say to the man. Immediately he released my wrist and unlocked the door. I flew outside. Where to go in subzero temperature without coat or cap? Close by was a giant strawstack. Burrowing deep within provided me with insulating warmth and a perfect hiding place. I could hear the man banging doors and searching farm buildings; but fear was gone, and I was secure and warm until the family returned the next morning.
Some years later a growth over one eye was painlessly removed through mental surgery. Treatment was asked for. The practitioner requested that I not look in a mirror and that I hold to the statement, "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, p. 463). I obeyed exactly.
During the night I was awakened several times by a strong but painless sensation in my eye. The next day at two separate times pieces of the growth dropped away and its removal was complete. The fact has since dawned on me that this mental surgery was perfect. It was, and is, as though the growth had never existed.
The inspiration of an instantaneous healing of a three-day buildup of influenza remains with me. I expected a houseful of guests from a distance for Thanksgiving Day weekend. Dismayed and frightened, I wondered how I could cook for them and entertain them when I was not able to prepare my own breakfast, or even to eat it. I had declared the truth earnestly myself but without apparent result.
I went to the telephone and called a practitioner for help. The practitioner was instant with the explanation that the word "influenza" is derived from the medieval Latin word for "influence." She then quoted from the Preface of Science and Health the following sentence, in which Mrs. Eddy refers to the mighty healing works of Christian Science (p. xi), "They are the sign of Immanuel, or 'God with us,'—a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense],
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised."
The practitioner reminded me that the divine influence is ever present in human consciousness. Within minutes I got up from the telephone completely healed, strong, energetic, hungry. And I had gained a new understanding of the illusory nature of sickness.
Twice when my dear husband has been transferred to a new area we have, through the application of the truths of Christian Science, sold our home on the first day it was up for sale to the first individual who came to look at it. The first instance was during the depression years of the early thirties. Because the second home was large, we were told that there would be no market for it. Christian Science treatment was asked for. The practitioner said, "Let's stand still and watch God work." In each case the price asked for and received was eminently satisfactory both to the purchaser and to us.
The following experience has been a strong staff on which to lean in later years. In a half hour I was to leave the house to conduct the Wednesday evening testimony meeting at the branch church which I was serving as First Reader. An acquaintance of my son's, a young man of sixteen, knocked and was admitted. His sports car stood outside. He insisted that my son, almost sixteen, go with him to a loggers' dance twenty miles distant. I refused permission. There would be drinking, and the entire idea was unsavory. Despite my refusal, the two young men towering over me were about to leave when the truth burst through the mist, and I recognized the real issue.
I thought: there is nothing wrong with these two boys. This is impersonal error tempting me to becloud the windowpane of my consciousness with fear and worry about my son so that the light of Truth and Love cannot shine through tonight in church. At once the young visitor turned to the door and said, "I guess I'll be going." Without a word my son returned to his homework. Moments later the telephone rang, and a fellow member of my son's Sunday School class asked if he might come over and study with him. The demonstration was complete. That evening it was as though the citations I was reading from the Bible and Science and Health were written in fire. I had seen Christian Science in action.
For class instruction, for the privilege of serving on committees, teaching in the Sunday School, and serving as First Reader, I am sincerely grateful. My gratitude for Christ Jesus and for our Leader is beyond words.— Salem, Oregon.
