Testimonies of Healing
I would like to express my gratitude through the pages of the Journal for the great privilege of being, or of trying to be, a Christian Scientist. Although the way has been uphill and the struggles with self very severe, I am finding that in proportion as I love the truth, and try to bring it into my daily life, and live it instead of talk it, the way grows more and more beautiful, and the cross melts into the crown.
In reading an editorial in the February, 1913, Journal, the question came to me, Why am I a Christian Scientist? Is it for what I can receive, or for what I can give? and am I blessing as I have been blessed? I have never before written my testimony, but I now wish to give expression to my gratitude for what Christian Science has done for me and my family, While I was a regular church member I was an active worker, but it all seemed so inadequate to meet the need of suffering humanity. God was afar off.
A sense of gratitude and joy impels me to tell of the benefits received through Christian Science. About thirteen years ago I was suddenly taken ill with an abdominal complaint and a most serious mental and nervous trouble which necessitated medical attendance, though none of the physicians were able to relieve me of the disease and suffering.
Some nine years ago Christian Science healed me of hemorrhoids, also of chronic bilious attacks. After this I never doubted that Christian Science could heal disease, and relied upon it altogether.
The Master taught, "Freely ye have received, freely give;" and I hope that by acknowledging the benefits I have received through Christian Science, some other sufferer may be led to the fount of living waters. In August, 1909, I called on a friend, a Christian Scientist, with whom I took dinner.
I am glad to have the privilege of expressing some of the gratitude we feel for what Christian Science has brought into our home. Five years ago, when our eldest boy was a year old, the doctor said he had whooping-cough.
When Christian Science found me I was dwelling in the darkness of unbelief. For many years I felt forced to take the agnostic position through honest conviction, the problem of evil seeming impossible of solution when associated with the belief in a beneficent creator.
I first heard of Christian Science in 1903, when a building resembling a dwelling-house was pointed out to me as a Christian Science church. After that I occasionally heard remarks of ridicule about this religion, until in the spring of 1906 a sister in-law, knowing I was in ill health and unable to work much more than half the time, brought a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs.
It is with a heart filled with gratitude for health and happiness gained through Christian Science that I send this testimony. I had been interested in Christian Science for a number of years, but had worked with it only in a feeble way.
It is eleven years since I have taken any medicine, while previous to that time I took much. During these years I have been an honest, persistent student of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs.