Testimony of Healing November 16, 1912 Issue

Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 67) that...

Laura Blandford Jennings

Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 67) that "grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods." I desire to testify to a wonderful proof which I had of the truth of this statement. In October, 1909, while traveling, our six-year-old daughter was infected by a disease which it is considered difficult to heal under materia medica. We were in Ohio when the slow fever which ushered in the malady appeared, and there we had two well-recommended physicians, both of whom did what they could, though without making a correct diagnosis of the case. At the end of two heart-breaking weeks I took my pathetic-looking baby home to Washington, D. C., where our family physician (assisted by the best of surgeons and three specialists) named the disease and gave me such slight hope as he could. Three weeks more of patient nursing and doctoring proved the futility of material means, which were accomplishing nothing except daily to weaken and make more nervous what seemed the wreck of our once healthy, joyous child.

Meanwhile, as I had a slight understanding of Christian Science and had seen proof of its healing efficacy, and as I was in a fair way to become a nervous wreck myself through nursing and witnessing the sufferings of my little one, I applied to a practitioner for help for my own sleeplessness, etc. One treatment was all I needed to place my thought and trust upon Spirit, God, so at the end of the five weeks of pain and sorrow, when as a family we were united in our desire and purpose to give God His opportunity, we turned to divine Truth for help and sent for the same practitioner. I can never forget that first visit to our home of a Christian Scientist. She found my little girl lying in her bed, with no desire to be elsewhere. How earnestly she talked to us both of God's love and ever-presence, and taught my little daughter to repeat a line from the 46th Psalm, "Be still, and know that I am God." After she had explained this passage in its spiritual import, she remarked that the child would no doubt get up that afternoon (this was about two o'clock), and added that we were both to come to her the next day. As her home was seven long blocks away, I smiled at what seemed absurd; but I acquiesced, just because she appeared so confident.

Sure enough, as soon as we were alone my little girl insisted on getting up, and helped as best she could at dressing herself. Then she said she was hungry, and only a mother can realize how I flew to prepare the food which she desired (as the practitioner had said she could eat anything she relished), and how, tear-blinded, I watched her eat heartily. My eyes and heart were kept busy the next day, too, when she arose in the morning, and did indeed take the walk to the practitioner's home with me. And when this dear lady said that she could come by herself the next day, the little face lighted up in response; and when she eagerly replied, "Yes, I'll come on my skates," my gratitude was too deep for anything but tears. A slight manifestation of the disease continued for ten days, though the child felt and acted as one perfectly, joyously well. At the end of this time I realized that I had been holding to a material desire of which I was making a god, and it dawned upon me that it is indeed true that "carnal beliefs defraud us. They make man an involuntary hypocrite,—producing evil when he would create good, forming deformity when he would outline grace and beauty, injuring those whom he would bless" (Science and Health, p. 263). When this was clear to me, I at once let Truth destroy my false belief, and left the case of God, to Life and Love. The next morning every symptom of the disease had disappeared, never to return; thus breaking every material law relative to this disease.

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