Testimony of Healing December 12, 1914 Issue

When alternating between absolute indifference as to...

Joseph Herzberg

When alternating between absolute indifference as to whether or not I got well and frantic desire for the recovery of my health, Christian Science was brought to my notice and accepted,—accepted not because I had any faith in its healing efficacy, but because there was nothing else left to try. I was suffering from a distressign state brought on by childbirth. Every physical function was disorganized, and my mental condition was distressing.

The healing at the time seemed a slow one. It was eight weeks after Christian Science treatment was begun before I was conscious of any improvement. Then little by little I was able to eat and retain my food, and the horror of sleeplessness left me. Gradually I began to take an interest in the doings of the family, and thoughts of myself and my aches and pains ceased to claim my whole attention. I do not know when I began to read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," for notwithstanding the fact that my health had been greatly benefited by Christian Science, when I took up the text-book I felt impelled to contradict everything I read. I remember reading how Mrs. Eddy said that the healing power of a drug lay not in the drug itself, but in the human opinion held in regard to it. I thought this ridiculous. I had always taken a certain remedy for a cold, and it had always done the work. That very evening the papers contained an advertisement decrying the virtues of this drug and extolling those of another medicine. This showed me that Mrs. Eddy was right; that a cure must have been brought about by the way persons felt about the matter; and if she was right in one thing, maybe she was in another. In place of contradicting the book, I began to hunt in my daily experiences for proofs of its statements, and I found that every statement could be proven. From that time my improvement in health was very rapid, till now my appearance is, as the Bible puts it, that of a "watered garden."

After my opposition to Science and Health was through God's grace overcome, another struggle ensued,—that of religious scruples. I was born and had been reared a Jewess. Our family had always belonged to reformed congregations, still the words Christ Jesus were anathema to us. In studying the Lesson-Sermons, such subjects as Life, Truth, Reality, etc., were easily understood and very helpful, but the lessons of the Sacrament and of Christ Jesus were very hard to read and study with an unprejudiced mind. Many a time I put the books away, intending to drop the whole subject, but then I would think of my wonderful physical healing and how my conception of God had broadened and deepened, and what a comfort it was to know that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Love. Pondering on the full meaning of those three attributes of Love, which seemed to satisfy every demand that a child had a right to expect of a father or a mother, I could not give up the study. I persisted, knowing that somehow and in some way this subject would also be made clear to me; and it was.

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