Testimony of Healing October 5, 1912 Issue

In October, 1910, I had a severe attack of inflammation...

M. K. Allen

In October, 1910, I had a severe attack of inflammation in one of my eyes. It became worse rapidly and was extremely sensitive to the light. At the end of about a week the doctor told me it was a serious matter; and a few days later, when I could not see at all with the affected eye, he said he would like me to consult a specialist. I did so, and the specialist said it would be a long case, and that there was ulceration as well as inflammation. In a short time the eye was so painful that the doctor said—to my great relief—that I must stay in the dark altogether. For five weeks I was in absolute darkness. Then it was thought advisable for me to go out for as long as I could each day, as I was getting melancholy, which was not surprising. I dreaded the light, but I went out every day, hoping it might cure me. Sometimes my eye was better, and then it was bad again. After about three months the doctor told me I would not be able to use my eyes for nearly a year, and that the bad eye would never be of any use to me for reading.

Some weeks after I began to suffer in this way, I was advised by three different friends to try Christian Science. The third time I asked the friend what she knew about it, and found she knew practically nothing, except that she had seen what it had done for another. The next day I went to see a practitioner, and was amazed at what she told me and very greatly interested, as it had never occurred to me that there might be people living nowadays who believed that God is everything that the Bible declares Him to be. I thought I would like to try Christian Science for my eye, but the people with whom I was living said my family in England would certainly not want me to give up the doctor, and that it would be too great a risk. What I had heard about Christian Science from the practitioner had, however, made me feel so hopeful that I decided I would stay in Vancouver and go on teaching in January, instead of going home to England as everybody advised.

A few days after everything was settled for me to begin work again, my eye seemed just as bad as it had ever been, but it gave me hardly any pain, and was not sensitive to the light to any extent; nor was I at all depressed, which every one thought extraordinary. Three weeks later I telephoned the Christian Science practitioner that I wanted to find out more about Christian Science, but that I could not, as I was not allowed to read. She kindly offered to read Science and Health to me, and though I hesitated to accept, as she was very busy, for more than two weeks she read to me every day except Sunday. It would be difficult for any one who had not been obliged to do nothing for so long a time, but think dreadful thoughts (with the prospect of twelve months more), to imagine what that reading meant to me. After a few days I was so intensely interested that I bought a copy of Science and Health and began to read for myself. The first day I was very nervous about my eye, but after that I did not think of it at all and read most of the day and a good part of the night. I was now most anxious to have Christian Science treatment for my eye, so I decided to ask the doctor whether it was all right for me to try it. He had been extremely kind to me, but he said frankly that I could not come to him and go on with Christian Science. I felt it would be impossible for me to go back to material means, and under these circumstances the people with whom I was living agreed that I could go to the Christian Science practitioner as a patient.

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