Testimony of Healing August 29, 1908 Issue

A dear friend used to speak to me about Christian Science,...

W. R. Best

A dear friend used to speak to me about Christian Science, but apparently without effect. After some time he ceased to do so, knowing, as he afterwards told me, that the seed sown must bear fruit. Some time later I saw him so freely and lovingly forgive what seemed to me an almost unpardonable offense, to the human sense, that I asked him, "Can it be possible for you to forgive under such circumstances?" He said, "Why not; is he not my brother?" I could only ask, "Is this Christian Science?" Shortly after I found myself suffering from a sense of hatred and a desire for revenge for what seemed to be an injury received at the hands of one whom I had esteemed as a friend. In my distress I went to my Science friend asking what I should do. For reply he took me to a practitioner, and there I learned that it was possible to forget and to love. It took time, but I was so far able to overcome the sense of injury that two years afterwards, on meeting my former friend at a meeting which he attended for the purpose of finding out something of Science, I was enabled to seize him by the hand and honestly thank him for the part he had unconsciously played in driving me to Truth as found in Christian Science.

Three weeks after going to the practitioner I found that a desire to which I had simply been a slave, one of the most enslaving known to mortals, had completely left me. I had tried to break from it before, as I knew the final consequences according to mortal law, though to no avail; but when Christian Science appeared, the error promptly disappeared. Shortly afterwards I took off my glasses, which I had worn for eight years, suffering from an eye trouble so severe that a specialist in Boston told me he wondered I was not in an asylum. He could not understand how I had been able to endure as I must have done. This healing was particularly interesting to me because I was enabled to see that by the casting out of a deep sense of hatred which I had harbored for years against a relative, and on my posting a letter to the relative trying to make amends as best I could, my glasses came off, and I found I no longer needed them. Never since that time have I once had an unkind thought regarding him, showing me clearly that I was really blinded by hate, and that love restored my sight. "He [divine Love] restoreth my soul." Many other things have passed out of my life for which I am grateful, but there is a cause for still deeper gratitude, and it is this: that Christian Science has given me, as indeed it does all, something that I can use, something I can share with others, and which enables me to understand the words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." It has given me the power of the "Word," and I can truly say, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." It makes a hitherto useless life a useful one; it awakens a sense of wanting to do for others, and to me this is a cause for deep gratitude. To know, as St. John tells us, that "now are we the sons of God," filled with power and grace, if only we are willing to "reflect;" and to know that in spite of seeming obstacles and trials that confront us on our road heavenward, we shall "win out" and gain our dominion, if we refuse steadfastly and faithfully to believe anything we "see," and stand only for what we "know."

Can we ever be grateful enough to our Leader for her consecration and faithfulness? Certainly we cannot, and I see but one way to express the gratitude we should feel, and that is by "living Love as Love to us is given."

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