Testimony of Healing June 1, 1918 Issue

Having spent the greater part of my life from 1902 to...

Charles P. Gough

Having spent the greater part of my life from 1902 to 1913 behind prison bars, I feel that I have a message of interest to my fellow men. In 1902 I was sentenced to serve three months in the county jail of a large western city, and the day of my release I was rearrested, and sentenced to serve two years in the state penitentiary. Leaving this institution at the expiration of my term, broken in health through having had bronchitis, typhoid pneumonia, and other ailments, I was seemingly driven again to resort to swindling, or what is legally known as "obtaining money under false pretenses," the charge on which I had already been sentenced twice.

I had been at liberty only about four months when I was again arrested, in a southern state, and sentenced to a county prision road gang, where I was compelled to wear a ball and chain, and to break rocks as punishment. At this time pleurisy developed. Through the loving help of a friend I was freed from the place and sent to my home in Massachusetts, where I remained but a few months when the desire to resort to my old ways of obtaining money returned. I was soon back in prison for a two-year term. All of this sentence was spent in the prison hospital, where I underwent an operation for what is known as an advanced condition of pleurisy, being in bed about five months. I left this place in a very much weakened condition. I was fortunate enough to get work which enabled me to lead an honest life for several years, but the old desire to defraud led me to my former dishonest practices, with the result that I spent a ninety-day sentence in the county prison of a southwestern state.

Finally, in 1913, while I was in the hospital ward of the Utah State Prison, being confined for forgery, some one called my attention to the Christian Science literature so kindly placed there by the distribution workers of Salt Lake City, advising me to read it. I read the selected articles, and they seemed so sincere and fair in their statements that I determined to learn more of the religious beliefs of the people who could write such articles. I already possessed a Bible and was furnished a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, through the kindness of a gentleman doing the work of reader at the Christian Science services in the prison. I read this volume six times and also studied the Lesson-Sermons, read the Sentinel, Journal, and Monitor, as well as every pamphlet and book on the subject that was printed or sold by The Christian Science Publishing Society. About six hours daily were spent in this way, just because I enjoyed it all and could not seem to get enough of it. I had no idea that I would be healed or helped by this study, but I was pardoned when my term was about half over, in spite of the fact that I was thousands of miles from home and seemingly had no one to help me. I know that "the sunlight ... glances into the prison-cell," also that "Love is the liberator" (Science and Health, pp. 516, 225), as Mrs. Eddy tells us.