Over forty years ago a severe attack of pneumonia kept me from work for six weeks and left me in a weakened condition which did not yield to several months of medical care. I then began to attend the services in a Church of Christ, Scientist, and soon regained normal health and strength. I later applied for a life insurance policy, and the thoroughness of this healing was attested by the comment of the medical examiner that there was not the slightest indication that I had ever had that difficulty.
With great gratitude, my wife and I became earnest students of Christian Science, joined The Mother Church and the branch church I had been attending, and became active on various committees, gaining fresh inspiration as we experienced healings through our study and application of our religion. I am happy to relate here two of these healings.
Just before I retired one night, the sole of one of my feet was painfully injured so that I could not walk on it. As it was midnight, I did not handle the suggestions of injury and pain, but got into bed thinking they would be all gone by morning. I awoke at six o'clock, with apparently no recollection of the injury. The subject of the Christian Science Quarterly Lesson-Sermon for that week was "Sacrament," and the first citation from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy was this sentence on page 35: "Our Eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God." This citation was in my thought, so I remained in bed for a few minutes, dwelling on the nature of God as revealed by the seven synonyms for Him given on page 587 of Science and Health, "Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love."
I then got out of bed, but as I stood on the injured foot, I experienced sharp pain. I stood on the other foot, and again turned my thought to the nature of God. In a few moments my thought became clear, and to it came the words, "You can walk now!" I was unwilling to do this, and mentally asked, "How do I know that I will not feel that sharp pain again if I take another step?" Then came this sentence from page 444 of Science and Health: "Step by step will those who trust Him find that 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.'" This broke the mesmerism and melted the resistance in my thought at once, and I then walked without the slightest discomfort.
Some years after my first healing, our son was born, and at the age of three he was enrolled in the Christian Science Sunday School, continuing there until the age of twenty. At about the age of seven, he swallowed a chicken bone during our noon meal. My thought immediately turned to an earlier experience when he had swallowed a large closed safety pin while I was pinning a diaper on him. I remembered that for a brief moment we were both startled, but as I realized that the pin did not belong there and turned my thought to God, the pin immediately came up. We had then both smiled, undisturbed by the incident.
While I was recalling this previous experience, our son had ceased trying to cough up the bone, and was pointing to the lower part of the mid-chest area where it was apparently causing him much pain. His mother then said to me, "Why don't you help him?"
I replied, "I am!"
Immediately, without effort on the boy's part, the bone, about one and a quarter inches long, came up.
There have been many other healings, but these I have related will serve to indicate the great debt of gratitude I owe to our Father-Mother God, to whom I am also grateful for our Way-shower, Christ Jesus, for our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and for Christian Science, which she has given us.
Several years after my first healing, when I seemed to be passing through deep and troubled waters, a teacher of Christian Science, whose aid I sought, said to me with deep compassion, "Christian Science has got hold of you and will never let you go." I pray that all who read this statement will feel that it applies equally to them. It has been a steadying influence in my experience and it is remembered with deep gratitude. The help of several practitioners during many years is also gratefully acknowledged.
I am humbly grateful to God for having led me into Christian Science, for all the activities of the Christian Science movement, and for the great privilege of serving in it.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I am happy to verify my husband's testimony. Christian Science brought new light into our lives. I am deeply grateful for class instruction and for the many healings I have experienced myself over the past forty years or more.
