Testimony of Healing July 10, 1902 Issue

I had been in very poor health for fifteen years

Irilla Judson

I had been in very poor health for fifteen years. Much of the time I was confined to my bed, one time for fifteen consecutive months. During this time I tried our home physicians, patent medicines, and home remedies, but received no help. I was taken on a cot to Fairfield, Iowa, to a doctor who we thought might help me. I grew worse very fast, and after six weeks' treatment I was brought home. Then I was taken to Delavan, Wis., to a specialist, for treatment. I was suffering from female trouble in the worst form. I was helped there so I could walk, but was not cured. The specialist had a stroke of paralysis, so I could no longer look to him for help. I was able to walk a short distance by that time, but not able to do anything.

I worried along in that condition for two years, trying different things, but received no benefit. I was confined to my bed two different times during the last year. I would have such bad spells it would seem that I could not live. I said one day to the doctor, "What am I to do? It seems that I am doomed to be an invalid." He, not knowing what else to say, replied, "Mrs. Judson, if you would go beyond the mountains and stay a few years, you might get your health." That to me seemed like a terrible sentence, another experiment in search of health. We had spent so much money in the search for health that I felt we would have to sacrifice our business and perhaps spend all we had without any assurance of finding health then. It was indeed a dark hour to me. When every way seemed hedged up and dark as night, and my husband and I were in despair, we heard of Christian Science. I had no faith in it or anything else, for it seemed to me it was only another experiment. But my husband said, "You must do something, and you might as well try that as anything else." He kept urging me, and so to satisfy him I wrote to a healer at Washington, Iowa, to treat me. I told him I was not able to go to see him, but would go as soon as I was able. He wrote me it would not hurt me. I thought that was very strange talk, for what did he know about my condition. In three or four days I felt I must go to see the healer and told my husband so. He looked at me in wonderment, saying, "You are not able to go, are you?" I said, "The healer said it would not hurt me, and I will take him at his word." I had not been able to sit up more than two hours at a time, but I felt I must go. I had to rest several times while getting ready. I had to make the trip on a freight train, a distance of twelve miles, and ride in a bus a half mile at each end of the road, to and from the train. I arrived at the healer's house about eleven o'clock. He gave me a treatment and some reading matter, and I left for home. Going to the station about one o'clock, I found my train late. I waited three hours before it left Washington. An accident delayed us, and it was half past eight when we reached our station. I did not lie down to rest after I left home until I had reached home again, and never had to lie down any more in the daytime to rest. I slept like an infant all night. My husband said that was the most convincing thing he ever saw, for I had not slept well for years before, and my sleep was not restful while my health was poor.

We have studied Science and Health ever since and lived Christian Science to the best of our understanding. This was five years ago last March, and I have been a healthy woman ever since. I am able to do my own work, and much outside of my own home.

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