Testimony of Healing April 28, 1906 Issue

Nine years ago a friend gave me a copy of Science and Health...

WALTER S. MIDDLETON

Nine years ago a friend gave me a copy of Science and Health to read while he was at church. After reading in it two hours I returned it to him with the remark that it would take eternity to understand that book. Then about five or six years ago another friend told me of what Christian Science had done for him and his family. I promised him that I would go to some of the services on a Sunday and Wednesday. I scarcely know what sickness or physical pain is, but all my life I have had the mental unrest that sent me searching for something to lay hold of strongly enough to dominate my life. When quite a youth I refused to dominate my life. the university because I did not believe in eternal punishment, etc., and I would not preach what I did not believe. That was a great sacrifice, for I was fond of study, so much that for the next ten years I studied at night schools, among the natural science, besides delving into spiritualism, theosophy, and all kinds of "isms." I did not study the Bible, for that I had read at school and had early found that few men even tried to practise what Christ Jesus taught; so there could be no gain in reading it. What a sham and a farce life appeared to me. Eat, drink, be merry, and take your punishment at death like a man,—it is inevitable. Such was my philosophy, and my religion was to strive to leave my friends a little merrier, if not happier, than when I met them.

Such was my condition when I attended, for the first time, a Christian Science church. I was struck with the evident truthfulness with which each person told of his or her healing. From that day attended every Sunday and Wednesday service that I could get to, and procured some of the literature, including Science and Health. The reading of these and attending the services kept me from drinking whiskey for nearly two years. After the last fierce struggle one or two treatments in Science completed the cure and gained the victory.

For thirty-five years I been a great smoker of tobacco. While studying Science I gave up smoking for three or four months, and then resumed it for several months till I lost all desire for it. These things occurred four years ago. I can tell of no great physical healing, though I have treated myself successfully in what may be termed minor ailments; but soon after I had definitely allied myself with Christian Science I had business troubles of a very serious kind, which lasted for a year or more. Circumstances occurred that such me very bitter against a certain party. I knew that such feelings hurt myself only, so I determined to try Science. In my office, walking the streets, or wherever I was, I strove to forgive. As day followed day, week week, and month month, I often felt it was useless for me to try longer. Yet I persevered, and after about four months it dawned on me that I had had no bitter thoughts for I could not tell how long. The demonstration of forgiveness was complete, and remains so to this day. A few weeks later, while trying to get some direction which would improve my circumstances, I did not get what I wanted, but received what was immeasurably better. I wanted to "grow in knowing" through my own experience. It seemed a mockery for me to pray, but into my mind came the remembrance that I once heard a learned and good minister finish his sermon with this quotation from Shakespeare, "Assume a virtue, if you have it not." Of the many sermons I heard him preach that advice is all that remains in my memory after more than twenty years. Many a time I had questioned the morality of the advice; now I found its strength, for I immediately assumed that I believed in a helpful God, and garnered present and marvelous results. Soon it was borne in upon my consciousness, "You hate all lying and hypocrisy; it takes little effort for you to speak the truth; it is easy for you to say a kind word to your neighbor, however sore your own heart may be. Surely, then, God been good to you." "Yes," was my cry, "all my life He has been good to me, and I did not know it till now." like loose links of a chain; but ever since Truth thus became conscious to me, these have been refined and welded into a chain that will bear any strain, if accompanied by honest endeavor.

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