Testimony of Healing November 9, 1918 Issue

I am very grateful to-day to be able to express in writing...

Celeste Julia Bartoglio

I am very grateful to-day to be able to express in writing my thankfulness to God for my healing, and so fulfill a long felt desire. Seven years ago Christian Science found me at the gate of Truth, waiting to be received. After three years of sickness in which I had tried all kinds of medicines, I was a complete wreck, and as the only hope was told to go to the operating table. The operation was performed and was said to be successful, but after six days, in which time I thought I would soon be out of bed, I woke up in the night with terrible pain. The blood seemed to be stagnated in the left leg, up to the hip. It was impossible for me to stand or walk, and after being in bed a few weeks with no relief I was taken home. I lay on a couch for about six months with no hope of getting well. All those six months I could do nothing but read, so I read all kinds of books, romances, and the like, and at the end of this time I could find no more interest in them, as they seemed all alike to me.

One day I commenced to think what I had done to merit such punishment. I started to figure out all the wrongs, but I also thought upon what I had already suffered; then I felt I was getting fuller measure than I deserved. Rebellion was aroused in my mind, and if I could then have seen God face to face, I would have reproached Him. This was my old belief that God punishes His children, but at this point the thought of God made me seek after Him. I sent for an old prayer book, but I could find no help. I used to believe in a "power of thought" (forza del pensiero) and in a Supreme Being; that was the only religion I had kept from my youth. But now I was looking for something higher. Surely, I thought, there must be some books in the world to tell of spiritual things, and I wished to find them. The following day a woman brought me a Bible, but I told her I wanted a scientific book. She said that the Bible was the best book in the world, and that all the sciences had been discovered from the Bible. It seemed as if it would take me too long a time to search the Bible and I was in a hurry to find God.

I started at the first chapter of Genesis, but I could not go any farther. I felt that if I could not find God in this first chapter I could not find Him anywhere else, for when God created the world and everything in it, He also created man in His image and likeness; so God and I must be there too. The words seemed as if I had known them all my life, but I could not find any connection between me and God. I cried over it, I threw the Bible on the floor; I picked it up, kissed it, and was sorry; then I was waiting for a sign. To illustrate: it seemed as if I was down in a pit inclosed by four walls and at the top there was a little window in which a ray of light from the sun was penetrating, giving light to the pit, and I was looking up with hope to be taken out to the free land of the blessed.

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