Testimony of Healing April 17, 1909 Issue

I first read Science and Health at the request of a dear...

Joy Lee Pinnell, G. A. Pinnell

I first read Science and Health at the request of a dear uncle, from whom I received a copy while at college in 1905. At first I read it critically, as I never had joined any church, having always been skeptical about what I understood to be the orthodox concept of God, and having stopped attending Sunday school at sixteen because my teachers said if I did not join the church I would go to hell. For about a year I read and reread Science and Health, reluctantly foreseeing that if I accepted its teachings I must give up all selfishness. Still I could not leave the book alone, and found in it the only possible explanation of the atonement, which I had never understood or believed in the old way. Finally, however, under stress of pressing material duties, I neglected to study, and with my father investigated Darwin's and Huxley's writings: also "mental science." This last state was "worse than the first," and I was indeed weary of it all. I had not learned the grand lesson of the need of humility in seeking the truth.

It was then (in 1906) that circumstances placed me in a position, through no fault of my own, where no power but that of God could rescue me. Fortunately I knew enough of Christian Science to declare that God is an ever-present help, that God is All-in-all, and that therefore virtue must be in His hands. I was instantly rescued from the clutch of mesmerism, and learned that God is indeed the only power. At this time another uncle, also a Christian Scientist, showed me how this truth is ever-operative for all mankind, just as it had been for me. It is hardly necessary to say that since then my whole time has been given to the study of the Christian Science text-book, and to helping others. It is only through a realization of the preciousness of our dear Leader's moments that I have refrained from writing her personally of my gratitude for Christian Science. Besides this wonderful demonstration I have been enabled to overcome a violent temper, have been healed of a catarrhal trouble which I had from childhood, headaches, and poor circulation (said to be hereditary), rheumatic trouble, and, worst of all, an intense fear of death.

Nor is this all. About a year and a half ago I had the pleasure of interesting in Christian Science the man who is now my husband. At that time, through our talks and letters, he was healed (almost instantancously) of the drink and cigarette habits, also of profanity and an indifference to religion in general. He is now an earnest student of Christian Science and we are both members of The Mother Church, endeavoring to be able to meet this test of our Master: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." We see, as Paul said, that our "reasonable service" is in offering a "living sacrifice"—the allness of Life demonstrated.

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