Testimony of Healing February 25, 1905 Issue

On the 23rd of March, 1900, I received from one of my...

Leonard Biddle with contributions from James Marshall

On the 23rd of March, 1900, I received from one of my daughters a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, as a present on my seventy-first birthday. At the time I received this gift I was very busy at my home near Baldy, New Mexico, operating a stampmill in the gold camp, and had but little time to read except evenings. I had for company one of my daughters and her little boy, while the men were up on the mountain taking out ore. Although a constant reader of all kinds of papers and books, I had never heard anything of Christian Science, except a short notice that spring in a San Francisco newspaper, from an orthodox clergyman, referring to the Christian Science people in not very complimentary style; but, as I am not influenced by any random talk, I kept on reading my book, and if I came to a knotty place I would mark it with a pencil, as something to think about.

I had been brought up in a French family (Huguenot), and from early training by mother and father, the study of the Ten Commandments, and the advice of my parents rather to suffer a wrong than to commit one, these had been impressed upon my mind, and as I came to manhood had been my guide in my dealings with others. My experience soon convinced me that, so far as business was concerned, Christianity was a failure, because every time I had commercial transactions with people who professed to be Christians, and many who stood high in their respective communities, my purse would be the lighter. I began to think that there was something seriously wrong in my bringing up, and I gradually drifted into the agnostic theories, but these only found fault with existing theories and did not furnish anything better in their place.

In Mrs. Eddy's book I came across a great deal of thought that was not readily understood at the first reading, but by continued and careful study, and a good deal of help from my knowledge of chemistry and natural philosophy, I soon shook off the belief of sensation in matter,—the so-called elementary substance. As winter set in my young people left for their homes, while I remained alone in my cabin, occupied in building additional machinery for the mill. Snow soon made its appearance at the altitude of 10,080 feet, and I would only go to the postoffice, three and a half miles distant, once a week, using snowshoes, and my time was taken up by my work and in reading Mrs. Eddy's book. One afternoon I put the belt on my circular saw to cut blocks of firewood and also to split a small stick of frame timber. In doing this the stick closed and pinched the saw. I picked up a small wooden wedge and tried to drive it into the saw kerf, but a bit of ice let the stick on to the back of the saw and instantly it flew, with heavy force, into my face, and bouncing off my left cheek fell about twenty feet off on the snow. The blood spattered on the snow next the saw table, and on feeling with my hand there were two wounds, one on the lock of the jaw and another forward, as big as a dollar, on the cheek bone. Now, I thought to myself, there is a case of surgery for you, and without further ceremony I began to treat the case to the best of my knowledge, with the result that the bleeding stopped almost instantly, and so did a thumping pain, which had commenced. I paid no more attention to the matter, but finished my work, and then went to supper. When I washed my face, I felt a big lump on the jawbone, where the block of wood struck, but after my usual reading I went to bed and slept all night until near daylight, when a pain on the right side awoke me. On feeling with my hand there was another big lump on the right side, but I treated it and went to sleep again. I never lost an hour from the hurt, although I found out that my jaw was broken. There is no scar, only a little red spot on my cheeck, and the lumps on the bone have long since disappeared.

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