Testimony of Healing December 12, 1908 Issue

I feel that I should no longer put off acknowledging, at...

Elizabeth R. Stabler

I feel that I should no longer put off acknowledging, at least in a measure, what Christian Science has been to me and to my entire family. A little more than four years ago it was recommended to us by one who knew of the shadow of gloom which was hovering over us, and in his desire to stand for the truth which he had tried and proved, he told us of it At that time we were searching everywhere for the freedom of our loved one, who seemingly was doomed in his innocent childhood (according to medical opinion) to a helpless and suffering existence. The doctors even went so far as to say just how many years he could live. This verdict caused great mental depression and consequent physical breakdown in my already delicate constitution, and thus in our extremity we gladly turned to that which held out the last hope.

Had I the space herein to relate it, I could hardly express all that Christian Science has been to me, but I will gladly tell at least a part. From being a delicate and almost useless wife and mother, I am to-day, through Christian Science, a well woman, and more of a helpmeet than a care. My family is also free from the medical law that declared us a sickly household. Our physician used to say laughingly that his horse stopped at our door without being reined in. This physician had not seen me for over two years until the day my baby was born, two years ago, when he remarked to my husband that he could not realize I was the same woman. I wish to add that this baby was born under Christian Science treatment and has always manifested health and joyousness and has never had any material remedies. Any little physical disorders which appeared were soon dispelled by the law of Truth, which always makes free when applied in sincerity. Our son, now twelve years of age, has steadily and surely outgrown the abnormal condition of his earlier years, and manifests the harmony of God's law. From being an irritable, nervous, and almost unmanageable child, he has grown to be gentle, quiet, and lovable, and is coming by degrees into the realization of law and order.

Our mother passed her eighty-first birthday last July. Having been reared under much theological thought, and surrounded by ministers and elders, her antipathy to what she conceived of as Christian Science was most pronounced; but ere long prejudice was replaced by interest, and about three years ago the light of Truth shone into her receptive consciousness, and daily since she has followed as best she could its teaching. With every test of its sweet and sure power, she loves it more and more, and daily she studies the Lesson-Sermon, does her mental work, then enjoys the perusal of all our good literature. Our joys and blessings through Christian Science have been and continue to be many, not the least of which is the liberty and light by which we are able to help our fellow-men. In our former belief this help was not so general, nor was our religion then uppermost in our thought,—the best loved theme with us; but we now find that there is nothing half so important as our religion, for it is our very life, and it is from God, who alone is Life. I know not how to express half the love, gratitude, and reverence which I feel for our Leader, but I do know that I sincerely desire to follow more and more closely and humbly her teaching. Physical freedom all naturally desire, and to each of us it means much, yet Christian Science gives us something more than that, something beyond it, wherein by degrees we learn how to gain and retain this longed-for physical freedom, by separating in our consciousness the wheat from the tares, and in proportion to the thoroughness with which we clear the weeds out of our mental gardens, so will be our spiritual harvest

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