Testimony of Healing October 17, 1908 Issue

I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to God, and...

Percy Willis

I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to God, and to our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, for the many blessings that have come into my life through Christian Science. At the same time I hope my testimony may be the means of leading some needy one to seek relief from sin or sickness through the same means which has proved so efficacious in my case. Though a strong and vigorous youth, I had since boyhood been subject to severe bilious attacks and headaches, and as I grew older they became more frequent and more severe. I tried dieting, exercise, medicines of various kinds, and consulted many physicians, but all to no purpose. Physicians who were personal friends told me they could do nothing for me, as my trouble was inherited. By the exercise of will-power I would keep myself to my work during the continuance of these attacks, but suffered tortures at the same time. In 1901 I was told by the examining physician that I would have to wear glasses to correct my vision. I did so, but received little benefit from them, and about two years later I was compelled to go to a noted specialist in Seattle and have my eyes fitted with new and more powerful glasses, which magnified the vision, but did not remove the pain and trouble in my eyes.

My mother had been interested in Christian Science for many years. I knew that she had been greatly changed after taking up this study, having become more patient, kind, loving, and uncomplaining than ever before, but I failed to see the relation between cause and effect. I considered Christian Science a new and harmless fad, and let it go at that. From time to time I received a copy of the Christian Science Sentinel from my mother, but I seldom did more than glance at the paper, thinking it could not possibly be of any use to me. One day in February, 1905, however, while at a remote military post, I received a copy of the Sentinel, and as I opened the paper I noticed several articles were marked with a blue pencil. I read one, and saw it to be an account of the healing, through the reading of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," of a man who had been afflicted with the same kind of attacks which had been the bane of my life. I read on. and found testimonies of the healing of all kinds of diseases by the same means. A new hope sprang up in my breast. I said to myself that surely these people must be telling the truth; they could have no object in deceiving others by false representations of this kind, and that if the reading of this book had cured them, it might cure me also. I made up my mind that it was worth trying anyway, so I wrote to Boston that same night for a copy of Science and Health and ordered the Sentinel for a year. I was determined to give Christian Science a fair trial and wanted the Sentinel as a help.

At length the book came, and the paper. I knew Christian Science was the truth as soon as I commenced to read the text-book, although its teachings were so contrary to what I had been accustomed to believe that it was with difficulty I was enabled to see clearly its true meaning. All my preconceived opinions of God and man were here reversed—turned upside down, as it were. I saw that my false pride and ambition had to have a fall. Their nothingness began to appear. I had always believed in God, and had been a church member for many years. I had long been accustomed to pray to God regularly, but seemed to get no answer to my prayers. I was grossly material, having many other gods besides the one true God. I was a victim of pride, ambition, selfishness, and a belief in the efficacy of human will-power to overcome adverse bodily conditions.

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