Testimony of Healing April 18, 1914 Issue

That Christian Science is equal to the solution of every...

Helen L. T. Badgley

That Christian Science is equal to the solution of every difficulty and the overcoming of every evil, has been proved to me many times. Colds, of frequent recurrence, resulting in long periods of hoarseness (which proved most detrimental to my daily work, since it depends on a constant use of my voice), have entirely disappeared. Periodical attacks of illness, accompanied by extreme weakness, would keep me in bed from one to three days, but these are also among the illusions that have been dispelled. Glasses worn for eight years, on account of what several eye specialists and opticians pronounced an unusually complex and incurable case of defective vision, were left off during my first six weeks' study of the Lesson-Sermons, and they have not been needed since, though that was five years ago. Teeth that were formerly filled at least twice a year, have needed no dentistry for the past three years. They have recently been examined by an experienced dentist, who said they were in perfect condition.

I could continue to tell of the innumerable blessings I have received, but it is of a recent demonstration that I wish particularly to write, because it shows so clearly how Christian Science casts out "devils" now, as the truth did when Jesus demonstrated it in Palestine so many years ago. For four weeks I suffered intense and almost incessant pain in the stomach. I knew I ought to be able to analyze the wrong condition of thought and cast out the error without the help of a practitioner, but days passed and I seemed to be making no progress, in fact the discomfort was increasing, when gradually I began to realize that I was, and had been for some months, holding a feeling of intense resentment against a friend. To sense this friend had been rude, unreasonable, unkind, besides many other things that do not express Love and Truth, and instead of denying these errors and knowing that they did not belong to my friend because they could be no part of God's child, I had told myself and others that they were characteristic of that friend. Furthermore, I was keeping some letters this friend wished me to destroy, and thereby was deliberately cherishing a sense of retaliation, thus entertaining a desire to do my friend an injury. When I saw the sin, I got the letters and burned them, and before they were consumed the physical suffering left me, and it has not returned. That was several months ago.

It is for the spiritual regeneration resulting from such experiences that we, as Christian Scientists, are most thankful, and because of it that our churches are springing up in every part of the world; for the Science movement goes triumphantly on in spite of any and all efforts on the part of those seemingly actuated by the carnal mind to thwart its development. When I consider my own struggle of four weeks against the sense of evil in just one instance, I pause in awe at the thought of the immeasurable spirituality and love and self-abnegation which must have been necessary in our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, to enable her to give to the world this priceless treasure, the systematized and wisely expressed statement of the truths of Christian Science. This Science is giving its students an understanding of God, and of the life and works of Jesus, which makes it possible for them to overcome evil in others by first casting it out of themselves.

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