Testimony of Healing August 9, 1919 Issue

For a period of years, probably not less than ten, I was...

George D. Hazard

For a period of years, probably not less than ten, I was addicted to the use of whisky. The thought of what a struggle the effort to break from this habit would be, always made the task too great to be seriously considered; besides this, the thought that I was in need of any fundamental reformation was in no sense acceptable to my ideas of my own importance.

On the evening of January 5, 1914, in a spirit of friendly curiosity and at the end of five days of excessive drinking, I told a friend, whose loving-kindness and patience toward me had been very beautiful, that if he would lend me a copy of Science and Health, I would read it in order that we might be able to talk about its teachings intelligently; so he lent me the book. On the way to my room I took another drink or two, then going to bed, fixed myself so that I could read in lazy comfort. I was thoroughly saturated with whisky when I went to bed and started to read at nine o'clock in the evening, and it was the first time I had ever taken a look at the Christian Science textbook. From the first line of the first page I found treasure beyond price, and I read until four o'clock in the morning, when I went to sleep perfectly sober; and since then I have been entirely free from any desire for liquor. I was healed and knew that I was,—healed through the reading of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and the realization that I had found Truth. The great effort had not been called for and the great burden had vanished. Neither of them was there, only a great sense of happiness and of release from the burden of false appetite, ignorance, and misunderstanding under which I had been laboring all those years.

The grateful acknowledgment of Mrs. Eddy's work in discovering and giving to the world the truth that the power of God is ever available, always has been and always will be, is seen in the lives of hundreds of thousands of healed and happy people in all parts of the earth. The purpose of this testimony is to give acknowledgment not only of this healing but of others, and to say that the promise given by Christ Jesus in Matthew is beautifully true: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." In just so far as we accept this invitation and learn of him—learn to know something of the law of Love and to practice it in our daily living by yielding to it our entire obedience in humility and in love—shall we find that the yoke of obedience is easy and the burden of loving is light.

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