Testimony of Healing October 5, 1918 Issue

To many people the restoration of their religious faith...

Mary H. Cummins

To many people the restoration of their religious faith means much more than the restoration of physical health, but both came to me through reading the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. I had been brought up in the church of my forefathers and dearly loved it. When I reached mature years, however, one religious belief after another had to be abandoned, until at the close of the year 1909 I found myself, although still a communicant of the church, with no hope and without God in the world. How wistfully I looked back upon the time when it had been possible for me to accept the creeds and dogmas which I had been taught, no one but myself knew, or how gladly I would have gone back to them, had that been possible. I was ill in mind and body, and finally reached the point where I did not care what happened to me.

For some weeks previous to this a friend in Chicago, whom I had not seen for a number of years, had been writing to me telling of the illumination and joy which Christian Science had brought into her life, and lovingly begging me to study it. In reply I said, with the flippancy of ignorance, that while I thought there was a great deal that was beautiful in the philosophy of Christian Science, I could not believe in the physical healing. In return she sent me a list of references to New Testament healings, but I tossed the paper aside and did not look up one of them, thinking that I already knew the Bible well. About this time a neighbor brought us a copy of Science and Health, but the book lay on the library table unopened for a week or more. Then one day it occurred to me that I must return it and that it was very discourteous to do so without even having glanced over it; so I took up the book and began to read here and there. If anyone had asked me if what I had read had made any impression on me I should have said, "No."

One Sunday afternoon soon afterwards I lay down hoping to get some sleep, for I was troubled with sleeplessness and had passed a wretched night. I did not sleep, but as I lay there the thought came to me, If there is a God at all, why should not one trust Him for everything—health for one's body as well as anything else? I could not answer the question, so left it unanswered, and I see now that this was "the thin end of the wedge." Later that day some friends dropped in to see us, and as the evening advanced I became more and more impressed with the fact that something had happened to me. It was as if the very outer edge of the pall that seemed to hang over me was lifted a hair's breadth, and faint and far-off, too dim as yet to be even called light, I discerned something. It did not occur to me at first to connect this with what I had been reading in Science and Health or with the question that had come to me in the afternoon; and when this thought did occur to me, I broke in on a musical discussion, to which I had not been listening, by saying, "I believe there's something in Christian Science!" There was complete silence in the room for some minutes, and when conversation was resumed it was with a decided sense of strain. Afterwards one of our guests took me aside and advised me not to have anything to do with Christian Science, but no power on earth could have held me back then. I had to find out if this strange, new thing that had come to me had anything to do with that book.

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