Article December 24, 1904 Issue

Healed by Mrs. Eddy

LAURA LATHROP.

I was first treated by a Christian Scientist in February, 1885. There were very few practitioners in those days, and I had to go a hundred and twenty-five miles to find one. At that time I had been a confirmed invalid for twenty-three years, and for three years, had been sitting in a chair made to order, tipped back at an angle of forty-five degrees. To sit up straight meant acute suffering. All kinds of treatment had been tried for me,—homeopathy, allopathy, water-cure, electricity, etc,; but to no avail. Every organ of my body seemed diseased and my nervous system a wreck. Five months before I was treated by Christian Science, my husband passed on, and then darkness closed in about me. For the first time all hope of ever getting well deserted me. Prior to this, in spite of the laws which doctors had made for me, that I was incurable, that I could look forward to nothing but entire helplessness, I had always felt that I had a work to do in the world, and that in some way I should be made able to do it. Now that he whom I loved best had gone, when for the first time in my life I found myself penniless as well as physically helpless, the clouds which had for so many years almost obscured the sun settled down over me in a thick, black pall, my very trust in God was gone, my only wish was to die.

It was in this hour of trial that I heard of Christian Science, and after months of persuasion I at last allowed myself to be taken to Chicago, where I was placed under the care of a dear student of Mrs. Eddy. I told her of all the diseases I believed I had save one, that was heart disease, which I was sure I had inherited from my father, who had suddenly passed on some years before. This I kept to myself, for, as I said, my one desire was to die, and I thought that would give me a sure way to escape. It had not yet come to me that death was to be conquered, not submitted to, in the hope of release from physical suffering.

When I applied for admission to the Metaphysical College the following summer, a paper was sent me upon which were various questions. One was, "Are you well?" I then knew so little of Christian Science that I supposed I must answer from the spiritual standpoint, so I said yes, although this one disease had not been destroyed, indeed, it was, if anything, aggravated.

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