Testimony of Healing September 6, 1913 Issue

My first knowledge of Christian Science was gained several...

Edwin John Roberts

My first knowledge of Christian Science was gained several years ago, at the time of the healing of my wife. She had suffered long from chronic stomach trouble, had been told by physicians that she was slowly starving, and indeed was able to take only "predigested" foods. In this state she visited a Christian Science practitioner and was completely healed by one treatment. Later, one of her eyes was seriously injured by contact with a sharp twig. The eye became acutely painful, inflamed and swollen, and the other eye was quickly affected. Again she was almost instantly healed in Christian Science, the second healing following the reading of a paper concerning Mrs. Eddy and her work.

After these beautiful demonstrations we still regareded Christian Science treatment as a thing to be purchased when there was need of it, and we gave no serious study to the subject for some time. Finally, however, when need for help led us to study man's relation to God and His laws, we began to feel a spiritual uplift and were able successfully to meet and overcome some slight attacks of illness. Then, in December, 1911, I fought a sense of inaction of the kidneys. On the morning of the 8th, after having arranged for the removal of our household goods, I started for my office, stopping to make a business call on the way. At the conclusion of this call I was suffering intensely, and made the serious mistake of believing that I had not strength to reach a Christian Science practitioner and that surgical treatment was necessary. The surgeon I visited did his best to relieve me. After certain unsuccessful attempts he made an incision through the abdomen and into the bladder with no better result. When he considered that I had reached the limit of endurance, he called an ambulance and sent me to a hospital for a further operation.

While in the ambulance I declared the truth, and knew that God alone could and would make me free, and gave myself to His care. At the hospital my body was again in the surgeon's hands, but I had no fear. Directly after the operation my wife was advised of my state. She at once asked help of a Christian Science practitioner. Cheerfully and earnestly he began his work. My wife then talked with the surgeon, who told her that I could not live beyond forty-eight hours at the utmost, that I would presently sink into a stupor, to fall later into terrible suffeing, and so pass away. He counseled her to send at once for our daughter, and any others whom she wished to have with her when the end came. My wife reported all my symptoms and every change to the faithful practitioner. Within a short time the doctor announced that a curious exception to the general order of such cases existed with me, that I was perspiring and had no fever; "but," said he, "it will come, for nothing known to medicine can save his life." Upon regaining consciousness I felt refreshed as after a restful sleep, and my wife told me what had been done for me in Science. I could see God's work already done, but I submitted to the ministrations of the surgeons without protest, knowing that no one, no thing, could hurt me.

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