Testimonies of Healing
About two years ago I stood in darkness, as it were, knocking at the door of Truth, which seemed closed to my understanding. From my earliest childhood I had been trying to follow Christ, but with indifferent success.
I feel it my duty to express my gratitude for the many blessings which I have received through Christian Science and Christian Scientists. Before I knew anything of Christian Science it was my daily prayer that I might be able to join the psalmist in his words of gratitude to God, "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.
Five years ago a friend took me to a Christian Science service in London. I very distinctly remember the three sentences which attracted me to this wonderful teaching.
My debt of gratitude to Christian Science and to Mrs. Eddy can never be measured by mere words.
Christian Science was presented to me at a time of very great trouble and necessity. For two and a half years I had been under medical treatment for a very painful complaint which the doctors eventually decided was a serious spinal disease.
In 1885 a young woman received aid from a Boston church of which she was a member, which enabled her to take treatment at a well-known sanitarium in the State of New York; but as she in no way benefited by it, her pastor, who had become interested in Christian Science, desired her return to Boston, that she might try Christian Science treatment. Her case was considered most serious by the physicians at the sanitarium, and they even doubted if she could survive the journey.
In March, 1906, I had a very serious eye trouble. I consulted one of the Christian Science practitioners in Philadelphia, and she advised me to read Science and Health and to rely wholly upon God, the Great Physician, for help.
From early childhood I was very weak and delicate, almost constantly under the care of a doctor, and medicines were taken as regularly as meals most of the time. I suffered with chronic bowel trouble and nervousness, and instead of growing stronger, as the doctors promised I should as I grew older, I grew weaker.
I desire to testify to the wonderful benefits received by me recently from Christian Science. Delicate always, succeeding illnesses, each more critical than its predecessor, and described by the doctors as nervous breakdown, at length brought me to a state of utter incapacity for work or the enjoyment of existence.
I am not a Christian Scientist, and only came to the Science in the past when I was driven to it; yet one would think that I ought to be a very ardent disciple of this faith after being delivered, as it were, from the jaws of death. During the fall and winter of 1904 I was reduced to a very serious state with bowel trouble.