Testimony of Healing April 2, 1910 Issue

I was baptized in the Mississippi river when I was sixteen...

Clara M. Palmer

I was baptized in the Mississippi river when I was sixteen years of age. A few years later I went to Minneapolis and secured employment, and there I heard of Christian Science and saw some people who had been healed. I did not like the name Christian Science, as I thought it sounded cold and worldly; but I had always believed in the healing promises of the Bible, just as much as I did any other part of the good book. I thought all that prevented us from being healed as in Jesus' time was lack of faith, so I decided that Christian Scientists were people who had much faith. I went to a practitioner to be healed of deafness. I asked her many questions, but my interpretations of the Scriptures were so literal and I held so strongly for a personal devil, that she told me we must not talk much. Time went on, and one day I saw some new books lying on the table. I picked up one of them and looked at the title; it was "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. That was just what I had always wanted, a "key" to the Scriptures, and with a light heart I took one of the books to my home. I cannot tell where I opened it, but it was at some place where the unreality of evil—sin, sickness, and death—was made plain; that God never made evil, yet He made all that was made. Like a flash of light in a dark room the truth burst upon me. The mystery of the ages was explained. I had found the "key" to the Scriptures. I had found the true God! I cannot express the feeling of joy, peace, and happiness that came over me. I was on the mount of transfiguration; old things had passes away; all things became new. How beautiful the world and everything in it looked. I had gone to the Scientist to recover my physical hearing, and had received something an hundredfold better, viz., spiritual sight and hearing.

My heart goes out with gratitude to God for giving us Mrs. Eddy and the "key" to the Scriptures. As time passed I had to come down from the mount and make this new-old truth practical, and well do I remember my first experience. I awoke one morning with all the physical evidence of a bad cold. I arose and knelt at the bedside and tried to realize spiritual existence; then I dressed, breakfasted, and went to my work. In less than two hours the cold had all disappeared. Later on, I listened to what Mrs. Eddy calls "the incentive of a mistaken sense" (Sentinel, Jan. 16, 1909). People said, "If Christian Science is the truth, why don't you get your hearing?" and, "I will believe in Christian Science when you get you hearing." So I fell into the thought that I must not talk of the Science or do any work for others until I could prove it by manifesting perfect physical hearing. I sat down and waited, so to speak, and finally it was made plain to me that I was making a stumbling-block of that physical defect, for every time I overcame an ache, a pain, fatigue, or any kind of disease or discord, there was the proof of the truth of Christian Science. At school the pupils who cannot work examples in long division are kept busy at addition, subtraction, and multiplication until the way is made plain for long division; and so it is with beginners in Christian Science. We must keep active at what we do understand, then the way opens up to solve more difficult problems. May we never hesitate to give a cup of cold water in Christ's name because we have not yet overcome every physical defect. If we offer the truth with a right motive we need not fear that it will not be accepted.

Mrs. Clara M. Palmer, Red Wing, Minn.

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