Testimony of Healing April 9, 1904 Issue

Fifteen years ago a copy of Science and Health was loaned...

Rosemary Baum

Fifteen years ago a copy of Science and Health was loaned to a member of our family, and although none of us were in especial need of physical healing we became intellectually interested in Christian Science. Unitarian teaching had given us an easy tolerance of all human philosophies and religions, and we readily accepted in theory the proposition that God is Mind, and that Mind creates and governs all. I myself was young, arrogant, and well satisfied with my treasures on earth; but I took pride in speaking patronizingly of Christian Science as teaching much that was good, although of course no liberal-minded person could accept the whole of any one doctrine. I did not, however, honor Science and Health with my personal attention, preferring to dabble in latter-day theories of evolution, physiological psychology, etc. The use of medicine was gradually discontinued in our family, and we came to depend entirely upon what we called "Christian Science with Mrs. Eddy left out." Into this false teaching we were led by intellectual arrogance and self-will, which so deified themselves in our consciousness that we believed that God was showing us the way.

Although repudiating the movement and the church organization, certain members of the family continued to read Science and Health from time to time, and to this fact we owe our deliverance form darkness. My older sister first "came to herself" and found the strait and narrow way back to our Father's house. At the time when she joined the Mother Church in Boston I was teaching in another city where I knew no Christian Scientists and none who were interested in "science falsely so-called." My sister gave me a copy of Science and Health in which I promised to read a little every day. The light of Truth thus admitted to my thought began presently to reveal some of the errors existing therein,—the inconsistency of claiming to understand what I could not demonstrate; the arrogance of expressing an opinion on a subject which I had never really investigated; the self-righteousness of refusing to accept spiritual guidance from those who had proved by their works that they possessed a fuller knowledge of Truth than I. It gradually became clear to me that those who make the most rapid progress in any line of thought are in the nature of the case leaders, while those who advance more slowly are of necessity followers, and will so continue until they succeed in bringing forth works as mighty as those more advanced.

In a comparatively teachable condition of thought I finally went to a prominent member of the Christian Science organization in this city and expressed my desire to inverstigate this subject for six months in order to convince myself if it were the truth. She freely agreed to help me, and I began to study the Lesson-Sermons and attend the services. The mental conflict which I was undergoing had already manifested itself in certain disturbed physical conditions, particularly in a nervous affection of the stomach and heart. This soon culminated in nervous collapse, with accompany ing symptoms of grip. Then Truth, having broken down the barrier of human consciousness, proved itself my refuge and my fortress. Under Christian Science treatment these conditions disappeared almost immediately, and I was enabled to continue my school work without interruption; nor have I missed an hour from it through sickness during the three years which have passed since that time. Three members of our family are now members of the Mother Church and the rest are on the way. We no longer ask, "What is truth?" for Christian Science has given us the answer. It is my greatest joy to realize that only as a little child can one be admitted to the kingdom of heaven,—that when a knotty problem presents itself the answer is to be found not through human intellectual perception but through the demonstration of spiritual goodness,—that likeness to the Father which enables us to "see Him as He is;" and in so far as we become pure enough to see Him we see and understand what He creates, "all the glories of earth and heaven and man" (Science and Health, p. 264).

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