Testimony of Healing May 16, 1908 Issue

It is related in the 6th chapter of the book of Joshua...

J. J. Masterson

It is related in the 6th chapter of the book of Joshua that the children of Israel (those struggling to overcome the belief of life in matter, sin, and sickness) marched around the walls of Jericho for days, blowing trumpets, etc., in order to break down the wall so that they could enter the city. It is narrated that their work had no effect until the seventh day, when they all shouted together, and then the walls fell. The writer once had an experience which illustrates the above very clearly. Having been confined from one to four weeks each winter for a number of years by illness, this same ailment manifested itself after I had come into Science. Two years ago I found myself suffering to sense with all the symptoms of the old disease and had to go to bed. My wife read for me from Science and Health, and we went around the wall,—declared the truth and worked mentally, denying the reality of the condition,—but to no avail, as it seemed. Suddenly the thought occurred to me to get up and read for myself, so I sat up in a large arm-chair, with blankets around me, and commenced to read in Science and Health. After going around the wall, reading various helpful paragraphs and pages, I suddenly came across this sentence on page 427, "The belief that existence is contingent on matter must be met and mastered by Science, before Life can be understood and harmony obtained." To me this was the seventh day. This was the shout all together; for my whole consciousness was illumined, and in less time than it takes to write it the proper shout went up, my whole thought became spiritualized, and the wall fell,—the belief disappeared, and I was instantaneously healed.

Paul writes in Ephesians of the time when we were without Christ, before the understanding of Christ, Truth, came to our consciousness, and he says that Christ has broken down the middle wall of partition, the belief of life as mortal, which seemed to shut us out from man's true birthright, health and peace. How true we find these words, for when suffering from the illusion of sickness and the thousand and one beliefs of mortal existence, we ofttimes find ourselves "far off," but we are "made nigh" when the recognition of Truth comes to our thought,—that life is spiritual, not material. To those still under the belief of sickness or some other discordant condition,—the partition wall which seems to shut them out from the realization of harmony,—our Leader writes (Science and Health, p. 573), "Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way;" and again, on page 566, the promise reads, "So shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God."

J. J. Masterson, New York, N. Y.

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