Testimony of Healing November 26, 1904 Issue

Lying on my couch, the body seemingly racked with...

Iona McCain

Lying on my couch, the body seemingly racked with pain, alone so far as any human companionship was concerned, with no friendly hand near to give assistance of any kind, I reached for my Science and Health, opened it, and read a number of passages which were in line with what I needed. Being in too much pain to hold the book or read long, I closed it and began to realize as best I could the meaning of the passages I had just read, together with many others that came into my thought from the Bible and Science and Health. The trouble was severe pains in chest, side, and head, together with extreme fatigue, seemingly caused by over-exertion, in doing a great deal of work, to which I was unaccustomed, together with my usual daily tasks. I knew, however, that the cause back of this was a sense which I had been struggling to overcome for months; it was the thought that I had no home, was absolutely alone in the world, without personal friends, and I suffered almost constantly from homesickness and loneliness, try as I would to realize the truth.

This morning, after reading Science and Health, and while realizing the truth, a passage in our text-book which always seemed to stand out before me in letters of fire in my test-times, again came before me. It was this: "There is no power apart from God,... and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God" (Science and Health, p. 228). With this there came before my vision the picture of my old home where I had lived fifteen years ago with my parents, brother, and sister. In this home were two mottoes which I had made of gilt letters and placed on the walls, and they were the first thing that met the eye as one entered that home. One motto was, "God is Love," the other, "God is the Power," I did not then know that He is the only power.

As memory went back to that time, when I was without any knowledge of Christian Science, yet had so realized the truth of these two mottoes that I had been impelled to place them on the walls of our home where others might derive some benefit therefrom, I remembered what a constant inspiration they had been to me, and how they had become my mottoes throughout my life. With the memory of past victories sweeping over me like a great flood, together with the gratitude which I feel constantly to-day for my clearer understanding of truth gained through Christian Science, there came to me a strong desire to arise at once from my couch of pain and write this testimony for our Sentinel, the first I have ever written, and I knew that with this effort would come the strength to do it. I arose, and as I proceeded with my writing the pain left, the demonstration was made, and I realized that I was not alone, but that as God has been my refuge and strength in times past in hours of extreme mental suffering and loneliness, so He is to-day the same ever-present help and companion. I am proving daily the truth of that beautiful hymn, "No, never alone." I am very grateful for all that comes to me through the study of our literature, and that I am living in an age when the truth has been so fully demonstrated as it has, through the life labor of one gentle, loving woman.

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