Testimony of Healing April 2, 1910 Issue

Nearly four years have passed since I was turned from...

Avery Brown

Nearly four years have passed since I was turned from being a scoffer at Christian Science to a grateful beneficiary of its healing power. While attending the Iowa state normal school I was induced by a friend to apply for a life insurance policy. A medical examination was made, in the course of which two physicians told me that I had organic heart trouble, and that I might live a year or I might live indefinitely. From a condition of average health I rapidly degenerated into a morbid, fear-filled person. Heart pains developed, and I turned away from the doctors who had frightened me and took up physical culture. I tried medicines, etc., but found no relief. Discouraged and helpless, I gave up school and returned home. I dared not tell my mother my condition but bore my trouble alone in fear and trepidation, each death from heart disease chronicled by the newspapers bringing up terrible pictures to my troubled mind. Finally, believing a change of climate to be my only hope, I decided to leave home and go to Washington state.

But here the "miracle." While stopping in another town with a friend who was to accompany me, I was stricken acutely with the much-feared trouble. Wretched and miserable, I left the printing-office in which I was temporarily employed and went to our rooms. I made up my mind to abandon the western trip and to return home to die. On my friend's book-shelf was a worn copy of Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," a book which hitherto I had scorned to touch, but now something impelled me to take it up. Starting with the sublime words, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings" (Pref., p. vii.), I read on and on unconsciously, until the entrance of my friend interrupted me. He asked why I was at home instead of working at the office, and I told him my supposed condition. Then the truth burst over me. My sickness was gone! Like the morning mists it had disappeared before the reading of a few chapters in that volume. My friend then told me of the healing of his sister; how she had sent him the book, but that he was unable to understand it. He advised me to continue reading.

The result was that I did not go to another climate in search of health. When I left that town I borrowed the precious book, and since that time I have grown slowly but surely in the understanding of the Life that is God and a God who is Love. The overcoming of fear was gradual but perfect, until the symptoms of the supposed disease became a rarity. My every incentive is to put off more of the old man each day, and to live nearer the spiritual ideal ever held before us by our beloved Leader, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

My experience, which to me was beautiful, dates back to...