For over thirty years, since I began the study of Christian Science, I have relied solely on God for healing. Mind, God, has been my only medicine.
I first learned about Christian Science during the Second World War when I attended a Christian Science lecture in Bulawayo, Rhodesia. I entered the lecture hall without any previous knowledge of Christian Science, apart from seeing the lecture advertised on a screen some days earlier, and came out an hour later greatly enriched. The logic of the lecturer's words so impressed me that I quickly responded to an invitation to attend a church service and thereafter became a regular attendant.
At that time I was feeling hopelessly separated from my wife and daughter in England and feared for their safety. As I grew a little each day in the understanding of Christian Science and God's law of harmony, I gained a greater peace of mind and a wonderful sense of His protection for my loved ones.
The following year it was my great joy to be accepted for membership in The Mother Church, although at times I doubted my readiness for such a step. The wisdom of joining has been proved to me over and over again in the blessings it has brought, especially during the years I was deprived of branch church membership due to the unsettled nature of my occupation.
Some years later, after the war had ended, while serving in the Royal Air Force in India I became very ill with a suspected tropical disease. Many others were afflicted and an epidemic was feared. I was moved from my quarters into the station sick quarters in a state of unconsciousness but was soon able to claim my rights as a Christian Scientist to refuse all medication. My copy of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy somehow found its way to my bedside and I began at once to read it. From then on every waking moment was spent in prayer and study. My condition steadily improved. Not many days later certain required medical tests showed I was ready to be released, fit to resume normal duties, which I did.
Of the many blessings that have come into my life since that early healing through the application of Christian Science, one particular healing had a special significance for me, in that it convinced me of the powerlessness of evil to prevent me from doing what it was my duty to do. In Science and Health we read (p. 385): "Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself."I had demonstrated this truth on previous occasions, but never with such conviction as came to me in the following experience.
One Saturday, during the period I was serving as Second Reader in a Church of Christ, Scientist, I developed what appeared to be a throat infection, which as the day progressed became increasingly worse. On retiring that night the pain was such that I was unable to sleep, and in my distress I turned to God in prayer. Included in my prayer was "the scientific statement of being" from Science and Health. I persistently declared (p. 468): "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." And so on until the end of the statement, but no immediate relief came.
With the coming of dawn my great concern was that I should be able to take my place at the desk in church for the Sunday morning service. When I got up, my first action was to read aloud the Bible citations in the weekly Lesson-Sermon. To my great joy I was able to do so without any apparent loss of voice, and this notwithstanding the condition of my throat, which made the swallowing of anything other than liquids difficult.
I read at both the morning and evening services, at which there was no evidence to anyone else of a physical difficulty. Within a few days the condition cleared up and I was soon eating and drinking normally. In Miscellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 116), "Never absent from your post, never off guard, never ill-humored, never unready to work for God,—is obedience; being 'faithful over a few things.'"
Norwich, Norfolk, England
