Testimony of Healing November 11, 1905 Issue

In June, 1903, when our dear Leader, from the balcony...

John Warner Keyes with contributions from Mattie Brisco

In June, 1903, when our dear Leader, from the balcony of her Concord home, looked into the upturned faces of thousands of her followers, and uttered those memorable words, "Trust in Truth, and have no others trusts!" she knew the injunction would be heeded and bear fruit. A notable instance is the case of Robert Waddell of West Mitchell, Ia., whose testimony appeared in the Christian Science Sentinel of February 11, 1905. He had been drawing a pension of fourteen dollars per month, but when healed through Christian Science could no longer truthfully remain on the list of invalid pensioners, and so surrendered his claim, and at his own request was dropped from the rolls.

When the truth of Christian Science dawned upon my vision, there was so much moral housecleaning to be done that quite a chemicalization was induced, which it is to be hoped will continue so long as there are errors to be thrown off. First, my banker failed; next, land values suddenly declined and my holdings left me, some by mortgage foreclosure, and the balance through forced sale. Then a life insurance policy became worthless, through the defalcation of the company's president, and a house and barn I had builded were hastily hurried away, so far that I never after saw a stick of either. All this was in the far West, where I had gone with the hope of securing the health denied me by Eastern doctors, drugs, and travel, — foreign and domestic. After the healing of my wife and myself through the recognition of Truth, I closed my two dental offices, supposing I should never practise again, held an auction, and departed for another State, there to commence the practice and preaching of the which had so blessed us. We followed this pioneer work for several years, in several fields, and with varying success, but there was always something wrong, though what it was, we did not (strange as it may seem) know. I had been healed of so-called incurable diseases, was able to, and did, daily ride my bicycle up hill and down, yet each three months, in full accord with the laws of the land, I took oath before a magistrate that I was an invalid through disabilities incurred during the Civil War in the service of the United States, and that I was thereby entitled to a pension of twenty-four dollars per month! But things did not go right; plenty and poverty alternated, and the practice of dentistry was necessarily resumed. Surely we had Jonah aboard.

Proportionate to the disappearance of pensionable ills came the demands of conscience, which were somewhat quieted by the vivid memories of the hardships and dangers incident to service in the field, but when I read in Science and Health, to myself and others. "The divine method of paying sin's wages involves unwinding one's snarls, and learning from experience, through pangs unspeakable, how to divide between sense and Soul" (p. 240, 1. 29), it somehow seemed to apply to me. When I would commend Christian Science to my suffering comrades of the Grand Army, the subject of pensions was usually avoided.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

As far back as I can remember, I have suffered from terrible...