Testimony of Healing August 7, 1915 Issue

I first heard of Christian Science when I was about fourteen...

Sarah E. Paine

I first heard of Christian Science when I was about fourteen years old. At that time I seemed to be well and happy, and although I saw something of the beauty of the truth, I felt no pressing need for earnest study; therefore I drifted away into what seemed the easier paths of belief in the power of the human mind, variously called mental science, autosuggestion, etc. In a year or two I found myself becoming morbid, unhappy, and despondent. Though exterior circumstances were the same, I was inwardly miserable, filled with fear of all kinds, and developing a very disagreeable disposition. I had joined a church at the age of twelve, fully believing that my religious convictions were settled, and Loving my church and all of its activities. Now, however, my religion seemed not to give me the joy and feeling of certainty that I had expected. I stopped reading my Bible and attending church, and was for a time in a hopeless and despairing state of mind, with little trust in or understanding of God.

After about two years more I came to see the utter inability of the human mind, with its belief in both good and evil and its reliance on personality, to help me out, and I finally turned to the one divine Mind. I started to read the Psalms, often late at night, in an utterly wretched state of mind, which seemed well expressed in some of the passages that I found; then I again took up Science and Health for study in connection with the Bible, and found in this study a practical help rather than the intangible theory which had been my former idea of Christian Science. I began to grow brighter, healthier, and happier. My work, which had seemed to be a failure, turned into success beyond my hope. Sensitiveness, nervousness, dread of the future, and neurasthenic tendencies began to disappear, and I felt like a different being. The growth into this new understanding of Life has not been rapid, but now that the darkest times are some six years removed, I can look back at the change with a joy that cannot be expressed in words.

I have had numerous small physical demonstrations, although the healing was always secondary, in my opinion, to the mental and spiritual uplift. Some instances which may be mentioned are the overcoming of a severe case of dysentery in two treatments, relief from a condition of acute suffering almost as soon as help was telephoned for, the overcoming of a sense of considerable pain from a sprained ankle by the remembrance that "inflammation is fear" (Science and Health, p. 414) and that ever present Love casts out fear. Colds, headaches, weariness, and the sense of pain in an ulcerated tooth (which did not cause me to lose a moment's sleep, much to the surprise of others), have also been destroyed. Then, too, my slight understanding of Christian Science has been of inestimable value in overcoming various problems which seemed to come up during an extensive trip under all sorts of conditions.

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