Testimony of Healing September 30, 1911 Issue

I have long wished to give my testimony of healing to...

Amelia Bowen Battelle

I have long wished to give my testimony of healing to the field. I was educated very strictly and religiously, but all my life I doubted the doctrines of the church, which seemed narrow and cramped. My father was an old fashioned preacher, who held to everlasting punishment and lived what he preached. He often insisted on my going to protracted meetings and kneeling at the "mourners" bench," but it meant nothing to me. He passed away when I was but a child, thinking that his little girl was unsaved. I afterward united with the church, because I thought it was right to follow in his footsteps, but was never satisfied, was always seeking something higher. I looked into many theories, but without finding anything to satisfy.

I was an only child, my mother having passed away from lung disease and all her family going the same way. With her last breath she said, "My little daughter is all that holds me to this earth," and reaching out her hand she committed me to the care of the great Father. I grew up delicate, with the thought always held over me of inherited disease. At last I came down with it, and was sent among the mountains to fight it out. There a dear woman told me about Christian Science, and said I did not need to die because the physicians had told me so; that I might look into Christian Science, as it would do me no harm in any case. This seemed reasonable, and I immediately began to investigate. As soon as I was able to be up, I visited a practitioner, with whom I talked about an hour, and this resulted in my taking treatment. I never thought I could be healed, but as I told her, if she had a higher understanding of God, I wanted to know it. I was healed in my first treatment of lung, throat, and heart trouble, also of dreadful headaches, from which I would at times cry out with intense pain.

The first time that "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" was put into my hands, I read it eighteen consecutive hours with an intense longing to retain the truth contained in it. A few months later I had the privilege of class teaching, and was happy to know that I could put off the "old man" and enter into my rightful inheritance. I felt as if intoxicated with joy, and when I sat down to reason out this great happiness, the "still small voice" whispered, "This is the new wine which cannot be put into old bottles; this is the new cloth which cannot be mended into the old garment; this is the wine of th kingdom." For weeks I was so happy that I seemed to walk in a great light. This was over eleven years ago. I not only have found Christian Science a great healing power, but a great sustaining power, as I grew stronger and stronger each day, and would like to exclaim with the psalmist, "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

I wish to express my gratitude for what God has done...