Testimony of Healing March 19, 1910 Issue

With a feeling of grateful love, I wish to add my testimony...

Almeda White

With a feeling of grateful love, I wish to add my testimony to the many given in the Sentinel and Journal, for they have been very helpful to me. In 1895 my family of four was afflicted with a siege of a much dreaded fever, and my daughger, aged eighteen years, was a victim of it. The church of which I had been a member for over forty years was not a home to me any more, for I had tried to be faithful and devoted, but my prayers and the prayers of the church seemed so unavailing that I felt the need of something better and higher. As I recovered from the illness so that I could read a little, my sister in Cleveland sent me some tracts on Christian Science. It was the first Science literature which I had ever had, and I read these tracts over and over, for they seemed to give my sorrowing heart much comfort. I had heard of Christian Science, but knew nothing of its Principle or teaching. I thought the church I belonged to was the best, being founded, as I believed, on the Bible and that alone. In about a year I bought a copy of Science and Health and by studying it soon found it to be indeed the "Key to the Scriptures." The more I read it, the better I liked it, and many minor ailments left me, such as headaches, weakeness, rheumatic and stomach trouble; but while I was being helped, and was much pleased with what I was learning in regard to the new way of living, I was not giving proper thought to the healing power of God,—the whole robe of righteousness.

In 1897 came my test for the healing, in the form of poison in my right hand. For ten days and nights I neither slept nor rested, not being acquainted with any practitioner or knowing what to do in the way of Science. To please my family, I used material means and went to a doctor once; and that was sufficient, for I was only worse, and opiates I could not take. Then it was that I learned that man's extremity is God's opportunity. I went to a friend and asked for treatment. He went twenty miles for a practitioner, who came in about six hours. Before he arrived I was easy and dropped off to sleep, and that was the last of the pain. The practitioner said I should remove all material applications,—that God did not anything but purity. My sister had come, and she took care of my hand, and I had treatment two or three weeks. In about a week we could see the result of the healing, but new flesh had to grow and it was some weeks before the hand was perfectly whole. In six weeks or two months I was doing all kinds of work with my hand, although some had said I never would do many things with it. Thanks to Christian Science, however, I have a good hand, and I have done anything I wished with it for eleven years. I have also been able to overcome a tendency to weak lungs and the fear of lung trouble, which was present with me every winter. While I am thankful for the physical healing, it is but a small part compared to the spiritual understanding of God, the ever-present good, here and now. I had always loved the Bible, but could not put its teachings into practice as I desired until I studied Science and Health.

My husband commenced to read the book as soon as we received it, and he has been helped in many ways. Headaches which came every two weeks and lasted several days, and were growing worse every year, until it seemed he could not endure the suffering much longer, have been completely destroyed; also a difficulty with the hip-joint, which made him use a cane if he walked a mile. For the last ten years he has walked off spry and straigh without any cane, God being his only support. Although he is seventy-six years of age, he enjoys good health, and reads little else than the Bible and Science and Health and our other Science literature. We soon found a few Scientists near us, and commenced to go to service with them, driving six miles each Sunday. I enjoy the Lessons, and make them my study every week. They are so well arranged that the Sermon is complete. We are thankful, too, for class instruction from one of Mrs. Eddy's loyal students, and the Sentinel, Journal, and Manual, etc., are of priceless value to us. The Monitor is another gem now added to the treasures in the household.

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