I give this testimony with the hope that some dear one,...

Clara Gurney Collier

I give this testimony with the hope that some dear one, weary and spent with the burdens of the day, may read the lines which convey the message of what Christian Science has done for me, and that I may thus glorify our Father in heaven. Four specialists declared that I had serious lung trouble. I spent six months in the Adirondacks, and came home only to be told that I should immediately return. For several years I had known of Christian Science, as many of my friends were interested in it, but it was not until my need was great—not until I had suffered keenly at every point, when I was weary and heavy-laden, with pride humbled and health gone, that I turned for help to Christian Science. Through the understanding of God revealed to us in Christian Science by our dearly loved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, I was healed, and learned to prove the words of David, "He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him." Not a limited sense of life, but Life! Christian Science teaches that God is Life and man His child!

I quote a line sent me by the physician who had so kindly cared for me at home: "We at this end of the line are hoping all good things for you." Alas! I had reached the point when I could only hope. Hope in what? In a God somewhere, far-off, who might give me a longer lease of life. Herein lies the difference between my former thought and my present knowledge, for in Christian Science we know only what we prove, and can prove only as we grow. I remember so well my utter hopelessness and dejection as my practitioner tenderly talked with me. Human sympathy in its fullest sense had been bestowed upon me, but there comes a time when the human has to lay down its scepter before the dread of death, and it was at this very point that I found God through Christian Science.

One of the first questions asked me was, "Do you love God?" I replied, "How can I, when I have called continually upon Him for help, and help never came?" The answer to my question was given me clearly, simply, beautifully, for at this point the Scientist's little girl came bounding into the room, and she said, "Do you think I could afflict my child?" "Oh, no," I replied; "I know you could not." "Then how can you dare to think that a kind and ever-loving Father, omnipotent, supreme, could or would afflict you?" Right then and there my thought of God—the God whom I had been ignorantly worshiping—underwent a radical change, and as I listened to how the little one fell asleep at night with the comforting assurance that Love was with her, Love's arms around her,—the simple words poured healing balm over my wounds. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Yes, I became the little child, came from the land of bondage into the fulness of Life and Love, with "gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear" (Science and Health, p. 324).

I began to prove man's eternal birthright from that hour. I began to prove my knowledge of God, to take Him at His word, to know that He is too pure to behold evil. As the false consciousness of sin, error, began to fade from my thought,—just so far as I denied the reality of a power opposed to God, just so far I proved my knowledge of our heavely Father, and, weary though I had been, I found the promise true, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Burdened, I tested these words, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee." I learned to serve God with love. I began to love God, to know that "in his presence is fulness of joy." When we know that God governs, when we live in the consciousness of good, we reflect harmony, and the effect is made manifest in the body and in our surroundings. As we realize there is no place where divine Love is not, and rise above the mists of false thinking and false doing, we reflect this Love and prove its sweet amenities,—the gentleness, the compassion, the courtesy, the unselfishness of this Divine essence,—and thus we prove our God to be a great God; not a God to fear, but a God to love, one who knows our needs before we ask Him; the giver of every good and perfect gift,—the giver of life not death, the giver of health (wholeness) not sickness, of love not hate, of peace, joy, purity, and power,—and one by one the burdens of hate, envy, malice, and jealousy will fall from us, for we cannot love God and also love evil. Night and day cannot commingle. Ah, that all might become as little children!

Clara Gurney Collier, Upper Montclair, N. J.

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