Testimony of Healing May 6, 1905 Issue

Christian Science has been the light of my life for...

Ella Dearing Campbell

Christian Science has been the light of my life for seventeen years. At one time my life was despaired of by my family and physicians. I had been an invalid for three years from a complication of diseases and was gradually growing worse, until it was decided to send me to a sanitarium where it was hoped that I might recover my health. During the months which I spent at this institution, everything that the kind physicians and trained nurses could do for me, was done, with the hope that through baths, diet, and massage, I would be strengthened to undergo several operations, without which, they told me, I would never be able to walk, or stand on my feet again with comfort. All these efforts failed, however; I continued to lose flesh and strength, and finally was sent home to die, being assured that there was no hope of my ever being well again. At this point, with a husband supposedly in the last stages of consumption, and two delicate little children, Christian Science found and healed me. In thirteen days, and for a trifling expense, I found myself a well woman. Never can I forget the joy of those first days of my new life. Many times since then, the memories of that heavenly joy have strengthened me in trails hard to bear, and in overcoming obstacles that have seemed almost insurmountable. I had an opportunity to study Christian Science at the same time that I was healed and began at once to try to live the life of a Christian Scientist.

My husband had been obliged for a number of years to go away each winter to a milder climate, returning in the spring to take up his business again; but this year, feeling so much weaker than ever before, he called an eminent physician from a distance, to examine him and advise as to the wisdom of selling out and closing up his affairs before he left. After a careful examination he was advised to do this, and upon his questioning the physician as to his condition, he was told that he could hardly live more than two months, while to the family it was said we might look for the end any day. This was the problem that confronted me with my new-born understanding. He had witnessed my wonderful cure, readily gave up his remedies, listened to all I had to say and accepted much. The first year his improvement was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. The second winter, instead of going to a lower altitude and warmer climate, as we were advised, we went to live at a mine having an altitude of eleven thousand feet, and here he went every day from the mine to the mill, a distance of two miles, in all the storms of winter, attending to his business without serious inconvenience, and his improvement was slow but steady.

The year that we spent in this lonely spot, up in the clouds and snow, was a marvelous one in my experience. Being a day's ride from a railroad and telegraph station, with no Christian Scientist nearer than Denver, a hundred and fifty miles away, and in a place where it was impossible to secure domestic help, I was obliged to depend upon God alone, demonstrating for the delicate children, for the dear husband, and over fatigue, while performing all the household tasks for our little family of four. Later, we moved farther away and false literature fell into my hands. My thought became confused, my demonstrations less clear. I was still conscientiously trying to work out my problem, and my experience in this period makes my heart go out lovingly to the dear brothers and sisters who are seeking help in the wrong direction, and not finding all that God has for the childlike thought,—the thought that is willing to be led, content to obey, and that bravely strives to surmount difficulties, instead of wasting time in looking and hoping for an easier way. How we long to spare them these needless struggles, and to help them to be brave, and true to the teachings of Science and Health. No higher, purer light has ever dawned upon human consciousness than shines from the pages of this precious book. I am thankful that its light was not long hidden from me by a false sense, and that I soon learned, and am still learning, that a material sense of personality is the greatest hindrance in my every demonstration.

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