Testimony of Healing May 15, 1909 Issue

After years of faithful research among the physical...

Albert R. Chappell

After years of faithful research among the physical sciences and philosophies, and an extended study of both eastern and western religions, I came to the conclusion that there was undoubtedly a God somewhere; but since immutability could not be manifested through mutable phenomena, we could have no possible means of knowing or understanding Him, and I therefore abandoned my search.

For a long time I had been incapacitated from any steady employment by reason of a severe heart trouble, which would cause me to remain unconscious for hours at a time. At last I thought I had found a medicine which, when taken frequently enough, so stimulated my energies that I was able to work more continuously, although the attacks did not cease, but were more likely to occur at night. One evening I fell in the street, and when I became conscious I was at the other end of the town, utterly unable to collect my thoughts or discover my whereabouts. After some friends had seen me home, I went to my physician, who told me that these attacks resulted from the drugs I had been taking, and that the doses must be curtailed or my reason would suffer. I told him I would take no more drugs, if that was the case. He assured me that it would be impossible to leave them entirely alone without occasioning intense suffering and even endangering my life.

It is not necessary, even if it were possible, for me to describe the agony of the next seventy-two hours, without sleep to ease my suffering, but on the fourth day I said to a friend, with whom I had once studied philosophy, "Can't you give me a thought or a problem to think about, so that I shall not go mad?" "Yes," he said; "think of this: 'All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all'" (Science and Health, p. 468). How absurd the quotation seemed—little manifestation could I see of the infinite! My friend then handed me a copy of Science and Health, on condition that I return the book next day, telling me to read it while awake that night. I did so, but could only understand portions of the chapter on Prayer.

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