Testimony of Healing September 19, 1903 Issue

On coming to Christian Science I found that I had...

Allen L. Clark

On coming to Christian Science I found that I had some boon companions to part company with. One of these was the smoking habit. I had contracted this at the beginning of my newspaper career, and as years went by I became an incessant smoker. I thought I could not work well unless I sat in a halo of blue smoke. As I became more and more interested in the reading of Science and Health my friends used to taunt me about my shortcomings, and I remember well on one occasion the surprise of a Christian Scientist who called at my home to find me buried in Science literature but complacently puffing at my favorite pipe.

I kept up my reading trying to imbibe more and more each day its spiritual meaning, then I began to notice that my relish for the weed was diminishing and I was very much ashamed to be caught smoking on the street. My favorite brands did not give the same satisfaction and I laid the fact largely to poor grades of tobacco. Finally I awoke to the fact that I was actually getting over the smoking habit and then mortal mind rebelled. I recall now how determined I was to smoke any way, but I kept up my study of the truth likewise. I tried to imagine how good the old pipe tasted, but way down deep in my heart I knew it was all an imagination and falsehood. Then came the desire to give it up and, "the desire," Mrs. Eddy says, "which goes forth hungering after righteousness is blessed of our Father, and it does not return unto us void" (Science and Health, p. 2). The victory was on the side of Truth, and while that is now five years ago I may truthfully say that I have never had a desire to touch tobacco in any form since that time.

Allen L. Clark, Omaha, Neb.

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