For more than twenty years I was an invalid

Maggie A. Richards with contributions from Helen K. Mills

For more than twenty years I was an invalid. I suffered with a bronchial cough, constipation, and ulceration of the lower part of my bowels, which gradually grew worse until I despaired of ever getting well. My husband, a physician, did everything he could for me; he consulted with the best physicians, but they had all given me up and said I could not get well. The cough was so very bad during the last few years of my sickness that I would have to keep medicine under my pillow and take a little many times during the night in order to get any sleep.

Three years ago I was induced by my daughter to quit taking medicine and try Christian Science. I did so and soon after commenced to improve. I continued to take treatment, and I read the Bible and Science and Health for three years, when I was entirely cured of the cough and bowel trouble. Not only did my physical suffering disappear, but mental care and worry also. I could write pages of my suffering and pain, and the great amount of medicine I have taken, but suffice it to say, that all there is left is a dark shadow from which I am turning away as fast as I can.

Words cannot express how thankful I am for Christian Science. During the years of my sickness I thought I was a Christian, but I entirely on material means for life, health, strength; and all these failed me. Now I am well,—old things have passed away and all things have become new. I depend on God for everything; He is my Life, the source of my health and strength, my All. I feel the day will come when all the world will know the truth as pointed out in Science and Health by our dear Leader.—Mrs. Maggie A. Richards, Omaha, Neb.

So much is said about the healing work of Christian Science by its grateful followers, that people who are not much acquainted with Christian Science itself, come to think that healing is its main work, and the principal if not the only point of difference between Christian Science and the regular orthodox theology. Every Christian Scientist, however, knows that the physical healing is but a manifestation of the transformation effected by the renewing of the mind. I did not commence the study of Christian Science on account of my own healing, but on account of the Christian Scientists themselves. I found among them men and women who were living earnest Christian lives. It was a new experience to me to find people talking together of the blessings God had given them, and telling each other of the spiritual uplift they had received from some Bible passage, or some paragraph in their text-book. They seemed so happy and satisfied in their religion, and to get so much more out of it than I did out of mine, that I wanted to know more about it. I borrowed the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, and commenced reading it. I had a good many prejudiced opinions to overcome, and at first there was much in the book that I did not understand, but each time I took it up to read, I did so with the earnest prayer that if it were true, God would lead me to understand it, and if it were not true, that God would not let me be led into it and deceived by it. The more I read, the more interested I grew, and the clearer the meaning became not only of the text-book, but of the Bible as well; and I will add that this is still my experience, after four years of reading Science and Health in connection with the Bible.

I have been benefited physically in many ways, but if I had never had any of these proofs of the truth of Christian Science, still I should be a student of Science and Health, because Christian Science is the most satisfying and sensible, the most helpful and practical religion that I know anything about, although I was a member of an orthodox church for a number of years, and tried to be faithful to its teachings. I get practical help for my every-day living out of my study of Christian Science, because it not only tells me that I should love God and my neighbor, that I should be unselfish, meek, and pure, but it shows me why I should be so, and how I can be.—Helen K. Mills, Des Moines, Ia.

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