Testimony of Healing June 10, 1905 Issue

Many years have elapsed since I was healed of an inherited...

Maggie M. Haper

Many years have elapsed since I was healed of an inherited affliction. From my earliest remembrance until Christian Science came to me, I was under one continued siege of suffering with my eyes. By great care, no unnecessary reading, and comparatively little that was necessary, I succeeded getting half through my second year in high school, when my sight failed utterly. Twice, for a few moments, as a direct result of prayer and the exercise of will-power, I succeeded in reading a few lines. I could not even distinguish any one whom I knew well, when across the street. My last essay written at school was written with my eyes closed. So determined was I to complete my school work that for some time I attended the recitations to listen only, being excused from study and recitation. My ambition was to gain a thorough education and enter the ministry. I had a Sunday School class of about thirteen scholars. most of whom had never seen the inside of a Sunday School until my untiring efforts brought them there. It was in the midst of all this, and other church work, that my sight began to fail more rapidly. I was compelled to abandon my class, as well as my other church work. The superintendent wrote, urging me to come back and at least sit by my class. I prayed earnestly, then took up the large family Bible to read, but could not see a word of that large print. I said, "If the Lord wanted me to teach this class, He would surely give me the eyesight necessary to do it." Meantime, I has on glasses that a leading oculist of the city had prescribed. I was trusting in glasses, doctors, medicines,—the arm of flesh, one moment, and in the Lord the next. Little did I understand the Scriptural declaration, "I am the Lord. ... my glory will I not give to another."

These thoughts finally presented themselves to me, "Am I really accomplishing any good, after all? If so, it would seem that God is working against His own cause, here on earth." To smite and hinder those who are working in His vineyard, would not be reasonable. I called on many ministers, who all informed me that it was God's will. My attempt to harmonize this thought with the Biblical statement, "He doth not afflict," proved a failure. Both could not be true.

I questioned further, "But did I not hear you read at church, 'God is no respecter of persons'? How, then, could He afflict me and not others?" How I did long to be able to read the Bible for myself and not have to take it, or rather fragments of it, at second-hand!

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