Testimony of Healing May 30, 1908 Issue

At the close of the year 1905 I suffered a complete physical...

A.L. Scott

At the close of the year 1905 I suffered a complete physical breakdown, which was diagnosed as stomach and nervous trouble, etc. The usual material remedies were resorted to, but without permanent results, my case instead of improving under materia medica gradually growing worse, and after many months of intense suffering my weight was reduced to one hundred and twenty-nine pounds, although my height is over six feet. For almost a year I continued to try every known remedy that seemed at all within the bounds of reason. I had always been a stickler for the "regulars" in materia medica, but in my desperation I conquered prejudice sufficiently to try mineral springs, osteopathy, homeopathy, etc.

About this time a friend suggested that I should give Christian Science a trial, and after some informal discussion I reluctantly agreed to do so. Having been a church member for many years, and lived its teachings as best I understood them, I shared the popular error that divine healing belonged to a former era. I did believe that God had power to heal, but I doubted His will to do so. During my year's illness I had devoted much time to the study of the Bible, which from my youth up had been my favorite book of all literature, yet I did not find its healing Principle. I had been opposed to what Christian Science had been represented to be, but my concept of it has been entirely reversed, because I now understand that Christian Science reveals God as good, and good only.

The friend who so kindly called my attention to this wonderful Science, gave me one personal visit and also loaned me a copy of Science and Health, which I read almost without cessation and in great eagerness, because it revealed to me absolutely and unqualifiedly an entirely new world. It brought and still brings to my consciousness that beautiful figure of St. John, in which he declared, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." In place of my wavering faith in a far-off God, Christian Science brought me an entirely different understanding of God, revealing Him as an ever-present power upon which I can depend at all times and under all circumstances. In common with the experience of many, I had to unlearn much that I had learned in natural science, and can now realize what a price we pay for human knowledge. I had never been fully satisfied with the old theological order, and I do not believe that any one can be satisfied with any theology that teaches belief in a power separate and apart from God; in other words, a dualistic theology is incomprehensible. I now see clearly that, as explained in our text-book, belief in other than the one Mind is the primal cause of all our troubles. My recovery was rapid; I have gained thirty-five pounds in weight and have not missed three days from business since taking my first lesson in Christian Science, about fourteen months ago.

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