Testimony of Healing February 27, 1909 Issue

It was some ten years ago that I first heard of Christian Science

MARION C. C. RUST

It was some ten years ago that I first heard of Christian Science. I was at Keswick, attending the world-renowned convention, and while calling on a lady who was an invalid, she showed me a card of the Christian Science services in London and said she had been asked to attend, and that she had been told that if she kept her thought pure her sickness would or could be cured. I warned her against going. A year or two later a master of a college brought up the subject of Christian Science as being something of my belief. Indignantly I replied, "No, indeed! That is from beneath. I believe in the one Holy Spirit," little knowing then what I was saying. I have since had to return, and tell him how wrong I had been in judging what I knew nothing about.

Some time after this my sister was in distress about our brother and his wife having come into Science, and she said I was the one to go and "put them right." The way opened for me to pay them a visit in Southampton, and in fear and trembling I went, but instead of being met with something evil, I was instantly arrested by a power for good, and I saw that the face which used to look restless and troubled now bore the marks of the Spirit, —of gentleness and love and light. Our conversation at once began on the one subject, and for three days we talked of nothing else. We did not even go out, and we sat up well into the morning hours. On the first evening I was handed a Bible and asked to read the first and second chapters of Genesis. On coming to verse 27 of the first chapter the words appeared to stand out forcibly, also the last verse, and the first verse of the second chapter: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished." The word "finished" took hold of me, but on coming to verse 5, where it said, "There was not a man to till the ground," I remarked aloud, "How strange, and yet man had been made." On coming to verse 7, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground," I let the Bible drop as though struck, and said, "Oh, what does this mean? There are two creations! God's man can't be made of dust!" The next night I asked for Science and Health, and took it to my room. Waking in the night, I just cried to God that if this book were error, not to let me touch it. Immediately the words came, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." I turned on the light and began to read from that wonderful book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, the chapter on Genesis, and I read for four hours, feeling quite rested and refreshed.

In the morning my brother, on coming into my room, said in an astonished way, "What's up?" and I said, "It is the truth." He called my sister to notice, and said I looked ten years younger. Well, this was how the light dawned on my soul, and it was the fulfilling of Paul's words, given me only a night or two before: "Accepted in the beloved;" and, "Translated . . . into the kingdom of his dear Son;" or, as it reads in the Greek, "the Son of his love." This, then, is the day-dawn, the arising of the "morning star" in our hearts, revealing the new creation. Paul said, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." With this comes the renewing of the mind, bringing transformation of the body,—health instead of sickness, joy instead of sadness, thoughts of peace and not of evil.

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