Testimonies of Healing

About eight years ago I was taken ill with inflammatory rheumatism. For three weeks I was not able to move unless some one helped me.

For many years I lived what is called a worldly life. I was fond of social drinking, was an inveterate smoker, and was obsessed with a mania for gambling.

In the year 1913 I had the good fortune to meet a person who told me something about Christian Science. The textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, was procured, and while I was reading the first page of the Preface the thought dawned upon me that this was what I had been looking for for twenty years; and with a feeling that I had never experienced before, I joyfully expressed my newfound hopes to my wife.

Two years ago, when our youngest son was about three weeks old, we had a severe hailstorm in our vicinity, which broke several large windows in our house, letting in great gusts of wind and rain. The next night I was stricken with a gathering in my breast.

I came into Christian Science at a very dark hour, after I had been pronounced tubercular by five physicians, and advised either to go West or else "make the most of my time. " I had asthma very badly, and was unable to lie down at night without the aid of an opiate.

Christian Science was brought to my notice about the middle of 1910 by a dear friend in Canada, who wrote telling me of the help it had been to her, and very earnestly advising me to look into it. At this time I had never heard anything except adverse criticisms regarding it, and in my ignorance had a good-natured contempt toward it, rather than antagonism.

I wish I could do justice in describing my appreciation of Christian Science. When this beautiful truth was brought to me I was in "the valley of the shadow," suffering from kidney and bladder trouble in a very severe form.

After going through many conditions of suffering which physicians had failed to heal, I was told of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I knew absolutely nothing of it, or its author; but the little that was related appealed to me, and I sent to the public library for the book.

My first impression of Christian Science was as a religion of joy and of love; and I was led into it in the following way. At Christmas time, a few years ago, I arrived in the United States with only a slight knowledge of the English language and without a real friend within a distance of three thousand miles.

Several years ago, after becoming interested in Christian Science, I was in an automobile accident and sustained what seemed very severe injuries. A physician was called against my wishes and examined me.