Article February 20, 1904 Issue

"Strong Reasons"

MARY TROXELL.

While much has been said concerning the financial question as related to Christian Science, I wish to give my individual testimony of benefits received in return for certain sums paid for literature, healing, and instruction. The spiritual and material cannot be weighed in the same balance, nor can material sacrifices, so-called, be counted against the gains God gives, yet it is sometimes well to consider these things.

My first expenditure was three dollars for a cloth copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy. In the first reading of this book, I was turned from a growing tendency towards atheism to an assured faith in God as demonstrable Principle, and to a conviction of the truth of Christian Science which has never been shaken; from drugs and discouragement, which were all that materia medica could offer, to a mighty hope of help and healing. My faith in prayer and the Bible, which had been deadened by doubt and dogma, was restored on a basis of spiritual understanding, and the life and miracles of Christ Jesus were illumined. Can the value of these things be weighed or measured?

For class instruction I paid the usual fee. In return I received systematic, thorough teaching in class, and suplementary instruction in students' meetings; years of patient, tender care and counsel in personal problems and aid in treatment when in physical need, for Christian Scientists do not claim to reach at once a perfect realization of physical or mental harmony, but are grateful for the gradual overcoming of persistent disease and obstinate conditions of sin and error. I had also the privilege of going to my teacher for advice in emergencies, or in difficult cases, and in these various ways was enabled to gain for myself a clearer knowledge of the practical application of the Science of Mind-healing for the benefit of others. From the time of my first work in practice, I was also enabled thereby to earn some means towards self-support, which became in time sufficient to meet my obligations and privileges towards our beloved Cause, and thus I received back again many times over the cost of my own tuition.

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