Testimony of Healing August 30, 1913 Issue

I feel it a duty to contribute my testimony to the enlightening...

Jos. W. Reynolds

I feel it a duty to contribute my testimony to the enlightening and healing potency of Christian Science. I did not become interested in it through physical healing, but solely for the spiritual benefit; and because of its irresistible appeal through clear and lucid expositions and incontestable logic in dealing with the subject of religious truths, this teaching first gained and has since held my attention. It might, however, be well to state that I did receive some physical benefits from the study. I had sundry ailments, but none that would be considered of a serious character, which I had come to look upon as unavoidable accompaniments of human experience. For one of these I had sought skilled medical advice and was promised a cure, which, however, did not follow the treatment, and as a result of this experience my faith in doctors and in medicine was greatly diminished.

Christian Science was first presented to me rather crudely, and I coolly turned it aside, but shortly afterward it was my good fortune to read some of the authorized literature, and I quickly discovered that it was a subject of great moment. After reading one article in the Sentinel my interest was so aroused that I immediately purchased a copy of Science and Health and devoted from one to five hours daily to its study, with the result that in a few weeks I found that all the physical disorders had disappeared and I did not know when they went. Any inharmonies of a physical nature which have since arisen have been readily overcome, and I now understand that it was the truth entering my consciousness through earnest study which at first so quickly destroyed the physical ills.

As before stated, the greatest benefit which Science has brought to me is of a mental and spiritual nature. Ordinarily one might have judged me as having no cares, but I engaged in many a conflict with the various temperamental idiosyncrasies of human disposition. Circumstances and environment seemed against me, and the growing realization that the world might prove too much for me to conquer, perhaps even in a limited way, was generating a mental torture which it would be difficult to describe. From early childhood I can remember wishing that I knew the truth. One experience at the age of nine stands out vividly. After viewing the silent face of a dear companion of my own age, I was for days in a miserably depressed state of mind, my thought many times rehearsing the wish that we might just "speak the word" and heal, as we were taught in Sunday school that Jesus did. How wonderful yet how desirable it would be for us to do this! Later, experience with the world and with the recognized forms of theology taught me not to expect such a thing. Little did I dream then, and during the intervening years in which this wish frequently revoiced its lament, that there was already a teaching extant which made available to human consciousness the same power that Jesus had used, and that what revolved in my youthful mind was a distinct prophecy of what I would later come to realize in practical experience.

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