I am sending this testimony as a proof of my profound...

Richard Daniel

I am sending this testimony as a proof of my profound gratitude for what Christian Science has done for me and for my wife. Here are the facts. In 1902, I had just returned from military service when I was suddenly taken ill, for the first time in my life. I was far away from my relatives and in a strange land. I had to go to the hospital for treatment, and stayed there five months. Through large doses of salicylate and because of a robust constitution acute rheumatism in the joints seemed to be overcome. I had absorbed so much salicylate, however, that three years afterwards I began to have stomach trouble; and the pains were aggravated each year. I had gastritis upon gastritis, and absorbed medicines continually. I consulted one doctor after another, and each one prescribed different remedies which brought no permanent relief; but having married in the meantime, my wife nursed me so well that at the beginning of the war I was sufficiently restored to go back to Switzerland to serve my country. The hardships of military service and great worries brought back my sufferings, and in December, 1915, I was afflicted with extreme nausea, which had never happened to me before. The sorrow of having lost my situation in Alsace aggravated my pain to such an extent that I could not sleep at night. During many months, I spent my nights sitting up in bed or walking in our apartment; but I may also say that I ever clung to God in the midst of tears, deriving enough comfort to return to work the next day. The manager of the establishment, seeing how sick I was, and being unable to understand that in spite of it all I was able to come on duty the next day, proposed that I take a few months' vacation, and be operated upon, for I was suffering from a diseased pylorus. I was radiographed a number of times; and a professor, under whose care I had been for a year, recommended an operation. I had reached the point where I thought of suicide as a means of getting rid of my sufferings, and thus cease to be a distressing sight for all my relations, who were in tears when they saw me come home, bent as an old man. Finally, I came to the conclusion that my condition left me no hope. Even my wife had given up all hope.

It was in February, 1919, that my brother heard in Geneva about a miraculous healing, and sent for me. I went, yielding to my wife's entreaties, for I no longer believed in healing; and the next day I was at the office of the Christian Science practitioner who had helped my brother's friend. Words fail me to express the joy and comfort I felt when she unfolded to me the idea of God as revealed in Christian Science, telling me that I had not known how to ask Him for my healing; otherwise, I would have received it. I had never before heard the name of Christian Science; but from that day I relied on God for my healing, since He is the ever present Physician of them that hear Him, for He does "hear their cry, and will save them." Such was my case. The struggle with illness was severe; but from the day I made the acquaintance of a practitioner I gave up taking any medicine and began to eat anything—something I had not done for many years. I was six days under the immediate care of a practitioner; and the healing was completed in three months, the rest of the time through absent treatment. I literally clung to the book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, which my brother had given to me; and I shall ever remember that, one day, when the trouble seemed to return, my wife succeeded in convincing me that what Christ Jesus had done two thousand years ago could be done again to-day. I jumped out of bed, and two days later I was healed. Fifteen days later I found another situation, which I gave up a year later to accept a better one, where I am now employed.

I am happy to have gone through this hard trial; for I have learned to know Christian Science, and have obtained a better idea of God. I have learned to love the Bible and to read it intelligently. No words can express my gratitude to God and the practitioner for the peace and joy which have come to me and to my family. We now have recourse to God in all our difficulties, and we never do it in vain. As an engineer I have at last been able to apply the law of divine Principle to the solution of technical problems, and especially to the proper working of an installation of machines which were not giving the desired production. I am showing my gratitude by endeavoring to prove worthy of all the blessings which I have received; and I revere the name of Mrs. Eddy, for it is through her teachings of the power of God that I am yet here to support my wife and my children.

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