Testimony of Healing July 30, 1910 Issue

The time has come when I feel that I would forfeit my...

Mary Belle Little

The time has come when I feel that I would forfeit my right to enjoy and profit by the good received through the Sentinel and Journal, if I did not show my gratitude. I loved the church to which I had all my life belonged, and all work connected with it. Our motto, placed in the entry of the church building, read: "No creed but the Bible, no name but Christ's." I gloried in being in a church that recognized, as it then seemed, no limitations, and I felt that everything possible in religion was possible inside the church of which I was a member; so I was not open to investigation or consideration of any other form of religion, and refused to discuss Christian Science or to read the text-book.

I had to be brought to face the fact that no amount of mere belief or blind obedience to "carnal ordinances," which Paul tells us "perish with the using," could make us followers of the Master in deed and in truth. Even when we were forced to give up a child, though a fatal illness, I felt unwilling to call on my Science friend, for I said that I had no faith that any prayers could be more efficacious than those that were held at the church for me and mine. But when, the next year, a second child seemed to be fading away from us, I consented to ask help for myself, that I might have strength to care for the child in the siege of a relapse. I stipulated that the help was for me; that I would take no medicine, but I could not feel willing to give up the doctor and medicine for the child. The response was marvelous. I became calm and restful and, most wonderful of all, the child lost every dangerous symptom and was speedily restored to health.

I saw then a power in Christian Science that was not to be found elsewhere, and I procured a copy of Science and Health as soon as possible. I saw immediately that it would be all or nothing to me, and I began to struggle earnestly, with all the energy of my nature. I wanted to know for myself that it was founded on the Bible, so I kept a Bible with a Concordance near me, and every statement that produced any question or doubt in my thinking was weighed, through careful study of Bible references bearing on it. Each mental warfare ended by my recognizing the truth in our Leader's interpretations. I had always hoped for the healing, and believed that all Christians ought to be able to avail themselves of the promise Jesus gave so unreservedly to all who should believe on him. As I grasped little by little the import of "God with us," and found that I could relieve others, then at last the spiritual sense of baptism came to me and I was ready to accept for my children, as they should become ready for it, not the water baptism of John, but the baptism which is "a purification from all error" (Science and Health, p. 35), that which John foretold as Christ's baptism of the Holy Ghost, and with the fire of purification.

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