Testimony of Healing October 6, 1917 Issue

When my attention was first drawn to the teachings of...

Zella Bissell Chatfield

When my attention was first drawn to the teachings of Christian Science and I began to read Science and Health, I was instantly and deeply impressed with its logic, its practicality, its common sense. Here at last, it seemed to me, I had found a workable religion, one that could be used to live by. I had been reared in a religious atmosphere and at twelve years of age had joined a church. For a number of years I conscientiously took part in its activities, but never seemed to gain any genuine sense of peace and comfort from my beliefs about God, nor could I see much evidence of real spiritual joy and uplift in the lives of religious people around me. Even my mother, a most sincere Christian and a woman of beautiful character, found her faith no refuge from morbid fears and anxieties, which darkened our home with thoughts of sickness and poverty and gradually wore out her life.

When I first became interested in Christian Science I was just finishing my college course and was in a most disturbed state of mind. There was sickness and discord in our home, and having been convinced that I had made a mistake in the choice of a profession, I was filled with anxiety about my future. I then passed through an experience which left me with a curious prejudice against organized Christian Science, and particularly against its Founder. So, while I continued to cling to the little understanding of Truth I had gained, and tried blindly to apply it, I was determined not to study Science and Health or to attend Christian Science services.

There followed two years filled with sorrow, disappointment, anxiety, and physical weakness. Finally one day I despairingly asked myself why I should be so miserable and weary when I knew what it meant to be the child of a loving Father; why I could not gain some practical help from that knowledge. The answer came instantly from my awakened conscience: "Because you are trying to get help on your own terms. You are blindly and stupidly prejudiced, and you are dishonest. You admit that you gained something good from Christian Science, and now you want to use that good for your own selfish purposes, without even giving credit to the source from which you learned it."

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