Testimony of Healing June 4, 1910 Issue

If these simple statements of my experience should reach...

Aaron S. Vanvaley

If these simple statements of my experience should reach some poor suffering and discouraged mortal, such as I was before I knew of Christian Science, and should afford him as great pleasure and profit as the reading of the experiences of others has afforded me, I shall feel that I have indeed found my own in another's good. I enlisted at the age of eighteen as a soldier in the Civil War, and when the war was over and I returned home, I felt the need of a better education. So I entered a district school, but though I studied hard I made very little progress. At the end of the first term I was very much discouraged, but I started in on the second term. At that time mathematics was a hard study for me, and my teacher failed to give me the necessary instructions. I related my situation to one of my classmates and told him I had decided to quit school unless I could get the help I so much needed. He said he knew of a book that would give me a start, a little book known as "A Key to the Arithmetic." This announcement gave me courage, and in a few days the key was in my possession, and it gave me the needed help. I had no further trouble in keeping up with my class, and quit school at the close of the third term with honors, which was the result of my getting help when I needed it and when I would have failed had I not received it.

There came a time, thirty years later, when I was more sorely in need of help than at any other period of my human experience. I was a weary wanderer, searching for health, strength, and peace of mind, and I had sought in vain at every known source. Physicians gave me no encouragement, medicine no permanent relief, and my church gave me no proof of its truth in health or in harmony of thought. Christian Science was then recommended to me by a friend, who told me that there was a book which contained all the fundamentals of Christian Science, and that the name of the book was "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author being Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. He further stated that many had been healed by the reading of this book. The thought of a key which would unlock the mysteries of the Scriptures illumined my thought and gave me new hope. I felt my heart lighten at the mention of it. I ordered a copy at once, and commenced to read it, and every spare moment from that day to this has been devoted to the study of this wonderful book. Its teaching is fast revolutionizing the world, and what it has done and is doing for unnumbered millions it will do for any and all honest earnest seekers after Truth.

The constant dwelling under Truth's search-light has uncovered and destroyed all my ills, both mental and physical. I cannot tell when they disappeared, but they went—they are gone! The last to go was fear. Before I knew of this great light I was afraid of everything and everybody. I was afraid even to trust myself; I was afraid to eat for fear of my stomach, and I was afraid if I did not eat I would lose my strength and die. But I can today truthfully say that I am free from fear and anxiety respecting both these things. I have learned the spiritual origin of man and know there is no cause for fear. Christian Science is not guesswork, neither is it "faith-cure;" its practice is definite, precise, and systematic. It works according to law, and is both rational and philosophical.

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