Testimony of Healing December 2, 1911 Issue

Whenever I see or hear a sneering reference to Christian Science,...

Frederick Hayes Allen with contributions from Lewis R. Works

Whenever I see or hear a sneering reference to Christian Science, I think instantly of the words of Jesus: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," as once, a few years ago, I myself sneered at Christian Science. Twenty-two years ago I was admitted to the bar and commenced to practice law under most favorable circumstances. I had youth, strength, health, education, money, friends, and the prestige which these things bring; I belonged to the leading fraternal organizations, mingled in politics, and was on the highway to success.

I was, however, said to have been born with a hereditary taint in my blood,—the appetite for intoxicating liquor,—and as my law practise grew larger, my appetite for drink grew stronger. Friends warned me, but I laughed at their fears and told them that drinking never would overpower me; that whisky might have downed many a good man, but it never would down me. By sheer force of will I held the appetite in check for a while, but little by little it crawled upon me until it held me within its grasp. Friends advised, relatives reasoned, and my dear mother, who was a student of Christian Science, begged me to see a Christian Science practitioner and free myself from the bondage which enthralled me, but I laughed at her and said that while Christian Science might do for nervous old ladies, it would hardly answer for a strong, rugged, intellectual man like myself. I struggled for a while, then took the gold cure; but its effect was only temporary. I did everything I could. Friends, physicians, relatives did all they could, but it was too late for any human help. I lost everything—law practice, money, home, friends, mother—all. I was lost. I went away. My relatives did not know where I was for years. They had given me up as lost. I was a slave to liquor, a hopeless wanderer on the face of the earth, a nameless derelict on the ocean of failure. I was merely waiting for death to come and end my misery.

In this condition I had wandered across the continent, and was up in the foothills of the Sierras one day, when I met a brave and noble woman who looked me in the eyes and told me that Christian Science could set me free. She gave me a few treatments and some literature which I read with avidity; but I wandered on, thinking that Christian Science would doubtless do for some, for most perhaps, but that I was too far gone to be saved. A few weeks later I met a Christian Science gentleman in Oakland, Cal., who took me by the hand, lifted me out of the gutter, and told me that divine Love makes men free from the law of sin and suffering; but my time was not yet come, and I wandered on. After a few weeks more of suffering, I was surfeited and was in direst extremity. One morning I awoke hopeless, friendless, and alone, and realized that I had squandered my youth in riotous living and that nothing but husks remained for me who had once lived in comfort and luxury. As I stood there watching the sun rise over the Sierras, the thought came to me as it had come to another prodigal long ago: "I will arise and go to my father" ! I had kept a page of The Christian Science Journal with the address of a Los Angeles attorney who had been saved from the very bondage that then held me, so I determined to go to this man, tell him my story, ask his aid, and give Christian Science a fair trail—and if that failed, I would then end it all.

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