Testimony of Healing October 23, 1909 Issue

Christian Science has wrought marvelous things for me

Millie Viola Carlisle

Christian Science has wrought marvelous things for me. As a child. I was always ill and in dread of disease. The fear of tubercular disease was fastened upon me, my mother having passed on with that trouble. A great many different diseases seemed to afflict me, while my brother and sister escaped them. Later on, physicians said that I had spinal trouble, one remarking that in order to be made well I would require a new backbone, but his treatment was worse than the disease. I tried every doctor with, in reach, but did not get any help. The medicine they gave me seemed to drive the pain all over my body, until finally it settled in the stomach. Twenty-six years ago, at the birth of child, I was left worse than before, and was not able to leave my room for four months. Then I lost the use of my hands, and this seemed the hardest cross to bear, as music, needlework, and painting had to be given up. I was advised to take sun-baths, which I did faithfully, with some temporary benefit. I then went to a hospital, the best in the state, but they claimed that they could give me no help without an operation. I could not consent to this, so I tried new remedies, then the starving system. I next tried physical culture for two years, and for fifteen years I was under rigorous dieting in one way or another.

One morning, a year and a half ago, I awoke to find that seemingly all the troubles I had ever had were afflicting me at once. What to do was a problem, and the tears came fast. Then something seemed to say to me: Read the Bible. I opened at Matthew's Gospel and read: "Ask, and it shall be given you." I thought at once of Mrs. Eddy's book. Science and Health, which I had previousaly promised a friend I would look into when I had the time. I went to the public library, not knowing whether the book I sought was there, but I returned with a copy of Science and Health, and read for a whole hour without removing my hat or coat; then ate an orange, and continued to read until twelve o'clock. I shall never forget how well I slept that night, and on awaking in the morning my first thought was, This is the resurrection morn, for I am born again in this truth that makes us free, I realized what it means to be a child of God, and not of Adam, Jesus said, "Except ye be' converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." I realized that I had been dead to the truth for forty years Great, too, was my surprise to find that the organs said to have been misplaced for twenty-six years, were now in a normal condition. I went to breakfast, and ate food which I had not eaten for fifteen years; and ever since then I have been able to eat every kind of food at any time with perfect freedom. I have enjoyed "the primitive custom of taking no thought about food," of which Mrs. Eddy writes on page 176 of Science and Health. In less than four months I found that a small growth which had given me a great deal of pain had disappeared, also that I was cured of a bowel disorder of many years' standing. Today I am a well woman.

The spiritual uplifting is even more to me than all the physical healing. The Bible never was clear to me before. I could not understand it, but I can truly say that I have proved Science and Health to be the key which unlocks the treasure-house of the Scriptures. What joy and peace the truth brings to us, in working out our salvation, clearing the consciousness of all impure thoughts, words, and deeds. The saying of Jesus which is printed on the front cover of the Sentinel has helped me more than I can express in words : "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." That means to me, that we should watch our own consciousness, — that we speak no evil, think no evil, hear no evil, see no evil, only to destroy it with divine Love. The study of the Bible with Science and Health became so interesting that three or four o'clock in the morning often found me reading the Lesson through, as my business demanded my taking early trains. After two months' study, I gave up a prosperous business of four years' standing and took up a form of work which occasioned me to call upon people from house to house. How my heart went out to them, as they told their stories of suffering and disappointment. In a year and half, I gave up all else to take up the work of Christian Science practitioner.

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