Testimony of Healing October 26, 1907 Issue

Without doubt the great majority come to Christian Science...

A. L. Van Arsdall

Without doubt the great majority come to Christian Science in search of health and usually as a last resource. Stricken with disease, they travel far and near, try all the "isms and pathies," but wothout success. Finally, in the very midnight of their despair, they turn to divine Principle, God, infinite good, as understood in Christian Science, and are healed. One who has spent even few hours upon a couch of pain knows how sweet it is to find surcease from suffering at the hands of a kind and faithful physician,—be the relief ever so fleeting and temporary. And yet, the sweetness of the relief from resorting to the material is as gall to honey, compared to the sweetness of the peace which comes to one who has been freed from suffering by spiritual means, by the understanding that man is the image and likeness, therefore the forever reflection, of the one infinite creator, Spirit, God. Such an one knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that his Redeemer liveth, though hitherto doubts may have held sway in his consciousness.

I did not come to Christian Science seeking health, although it has healed me of colds, headaches, and stomach and throat trouble, in the last two years. Enjoying good health, my selfishness and prejudice argued that it could be of no particular benefit or interest to me. Under these circumstances it is quite likely that I would never have investigated Science unless forced to do so, as thousands upon thousands testify to have been their experience. I am very grateful that this was not a necessary part of my salvation. By reason of a case of healing which came under my immediate observation, I was led to read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I was told that it was the text-book of the Science of Mind-healing; that it contained a complete exposition of the subject, a knowledge of which any one might acquire and prove to his entire satisfaction in the trials and experiences of daily life. Previous to the healing of the case just mentioned, and while it was under treatment, I had endeavored to read Science and Health several times in much the same spirit that one takes up a magazine. Turning to different chapters, the headings of which seemed to indicate interesting subjects, I had read a few paragraphs, or pages at most, and each time had cast it aside. I was quite positive that it was full of contradictions and misstatements.

At this opportune moment in my experience came the healing in my own family, freeing me from my prejudices and exciting my curiosity. I began to read the book at the beginning, resolving to give its statements fair and impartial consideration. I not only read but studied every sentence, often rereading sentences and whole paragraphs five or six times, so intent became my desire to arrive at an understanding of the Science, if such it was. The study soon became so interesting that I found myself leaving my office early in the evening, in order to hurry home to this new-found treasure. One of the noticeable results of that first reading, covering a period of three weeks, was the complete loss of an appetite for tobacco. For twelve or fourteen years I had been addicted to the habit of smoking. and upon several occasions, through sheer will-power, I had stopped smoking for two or three weeks at a time, only to return to the habit more immoderately than ever. Almost two years elapsed and I can truly say that I was not only healed of the desire for tobacco but that the odor of tobacco smoke has become positively offensive to me. Many other blessings have come to me in the study of this most wonderful book, I early learned that I had been thinking wrongly all my life. in time I learned that the basis of all right thinking depended upon a perfect concept of God and that to conceive of Him as embracing than all perfection was necessarily fatal to correct thinking. The study of this book has changed my whole life; indeed, "old things are passed away" and "all things are become new." An all-absorbing interest in the study of the Bible has replaced an apathy Which had made it the least interesting of all books to me. My highest ideals of the past have crumbled to dust, "their native nothingness," because they were builded upon personality,—imperfection. In their stead have sprung up ideals fashioned that the real, the perfect, and the eternal. I have learned that the realization of such ideals necessarily requires eternity. I fully realize that I have started none too soon upon the "journey from sense to Soul;" in fact, I sometimes feel that eternity may not suffice to win the goal of spiritual perfection.

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