I regret to record that our family for many years scoffed at...

I regret to record that our family for many years scoffed at the thought of Christian Science healing, although help along this line was lovingly proffered from time to time by friends who were students of this great subject. It is now difficult for us to understand upon what we founded our prejudices, as not one member of the family had read a word of authorized Christian Science literature, nor had we sincerely sought enlightenment or authentic information from authoritative sources. We were simply enmeshed in theological self-satisfaction, and sharp indeed seem the experiences necessary to rouse the suffering human mind to admit the poverty of its perfunctory religious beliefs in time of need and cause it to seek surcease in other than the stereotyped channels. Not until the physical condition of my father had become especially acute, and material remedies were proving worse than useless, did we finally lay aside our foolish misconceptions of Science, go to a practitioner, commence treatment, and begin to read Science and Health.

My father had suffered for years from a wretched condition of head, stomach, and bowels, and I can hardly remember a day when he was able to be up and about his business without resorting to medicines. His improvement under Science treatment was gradual but unmistakable. The medicines were immediately discarded with no harmful results, and within a few days he began to eat articles of food which had been denied him for years. At the end of several months the improvement was remarkable, and it was not long before the nightmare of invalidism was wiped out of thought. This was eleven years ago, and he is today a splendid, wholesome specimen of manhood and an earnest student of Christian Science.

We next witnessed the healing of other members of our family. I myself seemed in no need of physical aid, but the study of Christian Science literature greatly appealed to me, since for years I had been heart-hungry for this very food. Some time afterward the opportunity came to prove in my own experience that the "healing of the seamless dress" is indeed "by our beds of pain," as Whittier so tenderly puts it. I seemed to go through a veritable "valley of the shadow," but can now truly say that I am grateful for the whole testing-time, for Truth was marvelously and naturally victorious, and like the Hebrew youths emerging from their fiery baptism, I lost therein much that had bound and enslaved me.

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