Testimony of Healing April 27, 1918 Issue

My heart is overflowing with love and gratitude for...

Hilda R. W. Bailey

My heart is overflowing with love and gratitude for Christian Science, and I send my testimony in the hope that it may bring help and courage to others. A little over seven years ago I was ill with what the doctors called an incurable organic disease, which was said to be inherited from my father. I had undergone two operations, and four months after the second one I found myself just as ill as before, with no help in sight, unless I risked another operation. The doctor could not give me much hope that I would live through it, but said it was the only thing that could possibly relieve the intense pain I was suffering. Then a friend begged me to try Christian Science, assuring me that it would heal me. After a little talk I consented to let her take me on a twenty-four hours' journey to the nearest practitioner. I did not believe that I could be healed, but hoped I might be given courage to have the operation. After three treatments I found myself free from every symptom of the complaint, but I did not understand my healing and was afraid it might not be permanent, so I continued having help for two weeks. By that time all fear of a return of the trouble had gone, and I understood that God had healed me.

Thinking it would be beautiful for my friend to be a practitioner, I bought all of Mrs. Eddy's works and sent in subscriptions for the Journal and Sentinel, and we went back together to the country to study. When the first copy of the Sentinel arrived, I recognized it: seven years before in England I had seen a copy, which was left at our home at a time when I was suffering from severe pain in my eyes. For three years I had been alternately in pain or blind, spending most of my time in a darkened room. I heard my family say that a woman in America had discovered the law by which Jesus did his healing works, and that these works were being repeated over there.

I wanted to know something about that law; so when the others had finished with the Sentinel, I put it safely away, stopped using the drops for my eyes, and waited for the sight to return. I finally read the Sentinel under great difficulty, sometimes waiting ten or fifteen minutes before I could focus a word; but I learned that if I wanted to be God's child, I must be active, useful, and loving. I started next day to see how many useful things I could do, and for some days it was uphill work; but I never resorted to the material remedy again. Slowly and surely, by applying that little glimpse of Truth which I had received, my eyes were entirely healed, and after about two months I was able to give up the glasses. My disposition was so entirely changed that my family marveled, and I remember one day, when my mother asked what had happened to me, I replied that if I could have a Sentinel every week I knew I could be good. This, however, seemed quite impossible at the time, and so seven years passed before I again heard of Christian Science; but the healing was permanent.