Testimony of Healing April 10, 1909 Issue

For several years prior to the time I began the study...

Lewis B. Sawyer

For several years prior to the time I began the study of Christian Science. I believed that it was not only misleading in many ways, but that it was even a dangerous method of treating the sick. I had spent ten years in the study and practice of medicine, and believed that I knew exactly the process by which the cures (which I admitted) were brought about. Although at the time I took up the study of Christian Science I had been out of active practice for about seven years, I was still much interested in materia medica. I was professor of medical jurisprudence in one of our medical colleges, and was trying, with some success, to make a specialty of medico-legal cases. Aside from this I was interested financially in two drug concerns, so that the medical thought was connected with my every act in life.

To make my case more hopeless, as it seemed, I felt that it was inhuman to treat children under Christian Science, also that the inability of its practitioners to diagnose contagious diseases, and thus to prevent their spread, was a matter which ought to condemn it with all thinking people. These were only a few of the seeming barriers to my acceptance of Christian Science. How many more there were, I do not claim to know. Only the faithful practitioners and friends who so lovingly aided me in that stormy "passage from sense to Soul" (Science and Health, p. 566) can tell. With all this seeming opposition, and with the feeling that my supply depended entirely upon continuing in the medical thought, together with the fact that I believed myself well physically, it is marvelous to human sense that I should have been led to see the truth.

My wife had suffered for several years from diseases which would not yield to medicine, and although she was treated by the most skilful members of my profession, under their care she received only temporary relief. In her great distress she was anxious to try Christian Science, but though gradually growing worse, she lovingly yielded to my judgment. This state of affairs could not, in the nature of things, last. The very extremity which my erroneous judgment brought about, at last led me to see the injustice of my position, and I finally consented to have her treated under Christian Science. Her healing was beautiful and complete, but the effect upon my attitude was to increase rather than to diminish my opposition. The reason for this was that I attributed the result to the effect upon the human mind which is produced by hypnotism or mental suggestion, as is recognized by my profession.

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