How gladly I testify to what Christian Science has done...

L. Usteri

How gladly I testify to what Christian Science has done for me. I had been ill for twelve years when I heard of it. Weakness in general, nervous complaint, which expressed itself in insomnia and palpitation of the heart, forced me to a bed of pain. My heart-throbs increased to about two hundred beats a minute, and these attacks lasted sometimes from twenty to twenty-four hours. I was in torture, and the exhaustion of the heart which followed increased my fears to such a degree that I could hardly feel it at all, and it threatened to cease beating. I suffered so that I once said to my physician, a relative, that no sacrifice would be too great for me, if I could be freed from this painful condition. From the treatment of prominent physicians I had found temporary, but no lasting relief, and therefore I gave up all medical attendance and lived in solitude where I found good, pure air, and I hoped that God in His mercy would show me a way out of this suffering. Since childhood I had meditated over religious questions. These thoughts would be as fleeting as my heart-beats. I was seeking the truth, but could not grasp it.

In June, 1902, the representatives of Christian Science in our city had a trial in court. The Allgemeine Schweizer Zeitung of Basle gave a detailed account of the trial. My mother sent me the papers which contained that report, because she thought it would interest me. Although I did not read at that time on account of trouble with my eyes, yet I read this account attentively through, and here I heard for the first time of Mrs. Eddy's book, Science and Health. The representative of Christian Science said in his defence, that it had often occurred that people were healed from reading this book, and a desire arose in me to have it. I therefore urgently requested my oldest son to attend a Wednesday evening meeting and afterwards buy me a copy of Science and Health. I stayed awake until he returned, in order to receive this book, which has since become so dear to me. I began to read it quietly; but oh, I found it so hard to understand that I laid it aside discouraged, yet I could not let it alone, but took it up again to read a few lines. I had resolved to test this new "teaching from America" by the standard of which I once heard a man of God speak. He said, "Every religious movement must be tested by its standard of God and man; if its God be small and its man great, it is worthless and will soon disappear; but if its man be small and its God great, it is the truth."

Thus was Mrs. Eddy's book proved true to me; but it demanded much struggle and earnest thinking to understand it. As I do not like to argue, and this question was so important for me, I told no one of my study. In August I had a severe attack of neuralgic pain. The accustomed remedies were at hand, but I did not take them, because I had found that God is proved to be our helper when all material remedies are given up. The more I read the more the new understanding worked within me, so that I found I was not able to digest it all beside the demands of my daily life, and therefore I suspended the study of the book for two months.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

Christian Science has been the means of bringing into...