Testimony of Healing June 20, 1903 Issue

Although I am a member of the Christian Science Church,...

A. B.

Although I am a member of the Christian Science Church, an old friend, whose friendship I cultivated when I was a German school-teacher, has been trying to exercise power over me. Old Adam would make us believe that this friend, a tobacco pipe, can drive away the blues, and I had never made an earnest attempt to cast it away. I either could not or would not see that it was a false friend; I still attributed power to it, I believed that it aroused me to new activity and all such nonsense, and all reading of Science and Health seemed to be without success in regard to this mesmerism. Finally the hour came when the devil had to surrender this rampart, with many others that had been erected in me.

About four or five months ago, a man who was editor of a newspaper here died, and the physicians declared it to be cancer of the throat, caused by smoking. This made such an impression upon me, that I determined to give up smoking, and part with my false friend, which my wife called my idol. I tried to get rid of this devil of smoking, through will-power. But there I reckoned without my host; the desire for the weed was stronger than my will, and I had to say with Luther: "We can do nothing with our own power." So I determined to rid myself of this evil with the only remedy,—Truth as revealed in Science and Health. In short, I started aright to overcome the foe.

One treatment destroyed the enemy (whom I formerly believed to be a friend), and so entirely that I am convinced it can never return. When I now look back upon that time and think of that first week, when smoking ceased to be an enjoyment for me, I cannot help seeing the funny side of it. How old Adam resisted in me. The first day I made believe to long for my pipe and lighted it. I really used will-power to take a few whiffs, then laid it down on my desk. This manœuvre went on every day for about a week, until I, or rather old Adam in me, was convinced that there was no longer any enjoyment in it, and that these burnt offerings, which had heretofore been daily lavished upon the devil of smoking, must cease.

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