Testimony of Healing March 17, 1906 Issue

For months before I first became interested in Christian Science...

Mary E. Snyder

For months before I first became interested in Christian Science I would not permit the subject to be mentioned to me, but one day while out walking I noticed, not very far from my home, a Christian Science church. I said to myself, "The Scientists have pitched their tent quite near. I must go in and hear what they have to say for themselves." I carried out my resolution soon after, with only one object in view, and that was to criticise adversely. I, however, came out as effectually arrested by the truth as was Saul on his journey to Damascus. There were very few in attendance that evening, in fact there were very few Scientists in Brooklyn at that time; but the few were all well acquainted with the subject. As I listened to the testimonies I reasoned with myself, Now these people can have no possible motive for trying to deceive each other, and they must know that they cannot deceive God. It came to me clearly that what I heard was the truth, and I immediately began to investigate it.

Little by little I began to see, and my eyes, which were at that time in very bad condition, according to mortal sense, began to improve. I was quite well read in mate in medica, I had an electric battery, a highly approved medical work which I very frequently consulted, and a profusion of homoeopathic remedies; these, with the exception of the battery, were immediately destroyed, while that was put away and I have never seen it since. I also laid aside my glasses, which I had worn for four or five years. When I had done this I could not read, except a few words in Science and Health. I can now see to write, read, and sew by daylight without difficulty. I have in every case tried to work out my "own salvation," but have not always succeeded without assistance. I was healed in a very short time of rheumatism, which I supposed I had inherited and which was every year growing worse. Acute bilious attacks, which I thought I must have every three or four weeks, were overcome with one treatment, and have never re-appeared.

My progress has been sure if slow. There is a long road between the recognition of a scientific truth and its realization, — even as we ascend a mountain and can see its peak although we may have gone but a little way, and many steps are to be taken before we reach it. I was always a Bible student, and my familiarity with Bible texts was of great benefit to me when I began to study that wonderful book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. In the midst of the struggle to understand something of the unreality of error this text came to me, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," and it was a great help. I came to see, through Christian Science, that if every material thing were destroyed, God's spiritual creation, including man, would appear in all its glorious beauty and majesty, — good and "very good," — the trail of the serpent (material sense) being nowhere visible. Mrs. Eddy tells us that error is like the thick, heavy fog which wraps everything within its bounds in a sheet of gray, but when it lifts every object shows forth as distinctly as if the mist had never hidden it. So when the mist of error, which has no foundation in Truth, — no Principle, — shall have disappeared, then will God's creation appear in the clear light of Science, perfect as it always has been.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

I would like to tell of a demonstration which was made...