Testimony of Healing July 26, 1913 Issue

Although my first knowledge of Christian Science came...

Harriet N. Taylor

Although my first knowledge of Christian Science came through a wonderful healing some years ago, I have never written of it for publication. At the time this truth was presented to me through a friend, my case had just been pronounced hopeless by a noted nerve specialist, and my family had been told that I could live only a little while longer. I had been ill for years, and at that time was almost entirely helpless from a complication of many troubles, some of them said to be nervous and functional and some organic in origin. Several operations were said to be necessary before I could possibly recover, but I was far too weak to undergo them. I was also suffering intense pain all the time, which had spread to every part of my body. I had been on crutches for six months, and had finally been obliged to abandon them for an invalid chair, in which I was wheeled about. The only relief I could get at night was when under the influence of quieting medicines. All possible methods of medicine and manipulation had been tried, with absolutely no benefit, as I was rapidly growing worse.

I was quite willing to try Christian Science treatment, though I had little or no faith in it. I was perfectly indifferent to everything, but I told the practitioner who was called that I did not see how I could endure the night without some opiate. "Would you be willing," she said, "to wait till midnight before you take a dose?" I said, "Certainly," and she replied that she was sure I would not need it by that time. I was truly never so surprised in my life as when I awoke about seven o'clock the next morning and realized that I had been peacefully unconscious in restful sleep ever since eight o'clock the evening before, the first full night's rest I had known for years! And words cannot express my joy when I also realized that the pain was partially gone. Faith immediately awoke, and my recovery was rapid. In three days I could walk about the house, and in a week I walked to and from the street-car a block away. In a few weeks I was completely restored to health, and to such exuberant strength as I had never before enjoyed. All my old chronic troubles disappeared at once.

Not the least wonderful of all this was the healing of my eyes at the same time. I had worn glasses for eight years, and for the last three years dark glasses also, even in the house. As I could not endure artificial light at all without severe headaches, it became necessary, of course, to forego all evening engagements for three years, and to leave the family and retire every day after the evening meal. So when on the second day the practitioner asked me to lay aside my glasses, I thought it would be impossible; but as she had been so tactful and helpful to me in other ways, I thought I would comply for a little while, merely to prove to her my need of them. Several oculists had told me that the trouble was a complication, with various phases of defective vision. The practitioner advised me to try to read without the glasses for only five minutes the first day, and to continue gradually to increase the time. I did so, and have never needed glasses again. By the end of the week I was reading all day long, with no sense of discomfort. I have often had occasion to test my eyes in the severest way, but have had no return of the old trouble.

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