Testimony of Healing May 29, 1902 Issue

I shall try to give my experience and some of the lessons...

Edgar A. Scott

I shall try to give my experience and some of the lessons gained from that experience since my attention was first called to Christian Science nearly eight years ago. I attended a meeting in Topeka, Kan., held on Friday evening. It was my first meeting and I was surprised to see that the people were good, intelligent-looking people. After the meeting was over I was so interested that I wanted to talk to some one, so I asked to be introduced to the leader of the meeting, and after asking him a few questions, he seeing my astonishment and doubt at his replies, said, "Why! you do not know anything about Christian Science, do you?" This sentence was a blessing to me, for it caused me to realize that fact, and I immediately "became as a little child," willing to be told and to learn. This lesson of meekness was an important one, for I now see that meekness is a very necessary step in the gaining of an understanding of Christian Science, and as I look back over past experiences I see that I had to learn this lesson over again many times.

After the birth of our little daughter, at which I witnessed a good demonstration of Christian Science, I purchased "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," feeling by this time that the book was well worth owning. I had been a user of tobacco since a little boy, and had become a heavy cigarette smoker and also chewed tobacco. I would sometimes smoke a cigarette or two while reading a few pages of Science and Health. It had not yet occurred to me that the use of tobacco was not in accord with Science. But as I continued to read and smoke I became more interested in the book and my cigarette would go out until there would be a pile of burnt matches and a partly smoked cigarette where I sat reading. I gradually left off the tobacco habit and also the liquor habit.

My path has not been strewn with flowers in Science, and at times I have been very much discouraged and have complained of my lot, thinking that any one who was trying as hard as I was ought to be better supplied. It seemed a great struggle to have scarcely income enough to exist on, and so when I would resist a temptation to sin and succeed in doing a good deed, I would be looking for some great reward and thinking more about the reward than anything else. Then at times I would become so self-condemned and downcast that I felt that there was nothing for me but trials and cross-bearing, and that there was nothing to live for. But among the many good things that have helped me is this sentence from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 8, "We ought to examine ourselves, and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart; for this alone can show us what we honestly are." These and similar words from my teacher set my thought to work in the right direction and caused me to see the mistake I was making in looking too much for the material reward instead of the reward of being able to love mankind more and to love God or Good truly from no selfish motive, for the true reward is to be able to love without ever thinking of self. But if we are constantly looking for some material reward for doing good, are we not doing good from a selfish purpose instead of doing good because it is right? The realization of this has brought to me a sense of happiness and an ability to love that I have never known before, and as I have ceased to seek Christ for the loaves and fishes only, I have been more successful. I think I can truly say that I am learning to serve God more through pure love of Good than through fear of punishment or the hope of some material gain.

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