Testimony of Healing June 15, 1912 Issue

From my earliest recollection I was not considered strong...

Charles A. Kinkead

From my earliest recollection I was not considered strong or healthy; there seemed to be almost constantly something wrong. I was very susceptible to colds on the lungs, scarcely ever being free from them, and many times was not able to speak above a whisper. As time passed, my lungs developed decided weakness, and when I was about fifteen the lung trouble had developed to such an extent that I frequently overheard the remark that I would die from this disease. At the age of about eighteen years I began to do for myself in every way, and desiring so much to be well and believing that medicines would cure me, I was seldom without them; but instead of curing me as I had hoped, other diseased conditions arose. I had stomach and bowel trouble, also liver, kidney, and bladder difficulties, and the more I doctored the more diseases seemed to be my lot. At length when I had a bad case of piles, and then appendicitis, it appeared to me that I could not keep up such an unequal struggle much longer, so in September, 1903, I gave up, greatly discouraged. I sold out my business (that of saw-milling) with the thought that I would never again be able to engage in it, and started with a course of treatment from a specialist. I continued with this until the last day of December, 1903, on which date I took the last dose of medicine; and being then in much worse condition than when I commenced the course of treatment, I was utterly disheartened, in the belief that medicine could do me no good, and that there was nothing left for me but to drag out a miserable existence till death should end it all, which I hoped might come soon.

In February, 1904, while visiting a relative at Anderson, Ind., I was asked why I did not try Christian Science. I had never heard of it, and asked what it was and what it could do for me; but the one who mentioned it to me, not being a Scientist, could tell me nothing more than that people were being healed by it, and I was earnestly urged to try it. For several days I contended that I could have no faith in it, as I believed what was taught in the churches, that the day of miracles was past. I also felt my condition was too serious to be helped in any way or by anything.

As I was still urged, I went to have a talk with a practitioner, just to hear him tell what he would of Christian Science, but with no intention of having treatment, as I did not know what the treatment was and I reasoned that I had paid out so much money in doctoring that I did not care to throw away any more. The result of that talk with the practitioner was a treatment, and a wonderful change in my whole feeling. A pain in the head, the effect as the doctor claimed of heat stroke several years before, and which at times would, it seemed, drive me insane, left me and there has never been any return of it since. My thought became clearer, and as I was leaving the practitioner's house he said to me, "What you go home, sit down to your dinner and eat anything you care to eat and it won't hurt you." I had not done such a thing for months, even years, as I was almost afraid to eat anything, but as I went from his house thinking that he did not know, I began to be hungry. The result was that I ate such a meal as I had not in years, and there was no fear with the eating. I ate very heartily, but no trouble followed, and I have had none in that way since.

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