Testimony of Healing June 10, 1922 Issue

Many years ago I sent a testimony to The Christian Science Journal...

Elizabeth S. Thornton

Many years ago I sent a testimony to The Christian Science Journal as to my first healing in Christian Science from what was pronounced an incurable form of heart disease; but now I should like to tell of what I feel to be an equally wonderful healing.

Nearly two years ago I was bicycling down a steep hill, at the bottom of which I had to make a sharp turn. In some way, which I cannot explain, I lost control of the machine and turned the corner at far too rapid a pace. The front wheel struck a low culvert bordering the road, and I was flung off—right over the handle bars—with terrific violence, against a row of rusty iron railings. As I fell, the truth of being flashed into my consciousness. I was not stunned; but a hospital nurse who was passing, and some ground men (I was close to the local lawn tennis club) who immediately rushed to my assistance, when they saw how terribly injured I was, without saying a word to me hastened to telephone a surgeon to come at once and bring help with him. Half of the scalp had been torn nearly off and other severe injuries received. I was, however, able to get up and walk to the pavilion, and to ask that a message be sent to a friend of mine, a working Christian Scientist, telling her I had had an accident and asking her to come at once. She, on hearing this, immediately declared the truth, realizing the impossibility of any of God's ideas meeting with an accident; and by the time the surgeon arrived the bleeding had ceased,—a fact which I think struck him very much, the arteries having been severed. He felt the case to be so urgent that, without waiting to administer any form of anesthetic or to perform anything but the most hasty washing of the wound, he put in eight or nine stitches, not one of which caused me the slightest pain or faintness, as I lay talking to my friend quite cheerfully all the time. I was taken home in an ambulance,—a great belief of the possibility of hemorrhage being held for me,—and put to bed. The nurse brought by the surgeon accompanied me, and was most kind and helpful.

My friend and I then decided that she would remain with me and do any needful nursing, and that we would ask another practitioner to take the case. This was immediately done. It was, therefore, an unpleasant surprise to me when, in the afternoon, while I was still too tired to pull myself together, the doctor came again, and treated me according to his own ideas; but as soon as he had gone I spoke to my husband and told him I wished for Christian Science treatment only. He willingly consented; and the doctor was then written to and told that, as a Christian Scientist, I wished for no material treatment at all. Many were the human beliefs of almost inevitable disaster prognosticated for me; but one and all were proved powerless. On the third day I got up, dressed, and walked out into the garden; and I never had any further invalidism, though I was obliged to wear the bandages for a day or two longer. The stitches came out quite simply, without any trouble to any one. On the eighth day I was in my place as Reader at both morning and evening services, without the smallest inconvenience, many of the congregation being completely unaware that I had had any accident.

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