Testimony of Healing January 5, 1924 Issue

My first acquaintance with Christian Science came...

John M. Welch

My first acquaintance with Christian Science came through a man whom I invited to join me in a social drink. He declined, saying, "I have been healed of that habit." This was a new expression to me; and I was interested. This man had been an habitual drinker. He had contracted asthma, and was given up as incurable. Christian Science was recommended, and his brother induced him to try it. In three treatments he was healed of both the asthma and the drink habit. As he told me this, I listened with toleration, knowing he had tried many other cures. I felt it was only a question of a short time before he would again be a slave to his old appetite.

Four years later I met this man again; and the change for the better impressed me. When he invited me to attend a Wednesday evening testimony meeting, I accepted; and again I was impressed. I prayed sincerely to be shown if there was anything in Christian Science for me. After the service, he accompanied me to my hotel and told me of many healings of the appetite for drink, tobacco, and drugs; also of numerous physical healings. During the recital of these marvelous healings, he kept repeating, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Finally I said: "I have been seeking all my life. I have asked and tried different ologies and isms, until I have become discouraged. I took up the social drink habit; and now a great fear possesses me that I, too, may become a drunkard. Now I am knocking. Can you do anything for me?" His answer was reassuring. He said, "I know God will." I was healed from that moment, and have never had a desire for intoxicating liquors since. He lent me "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy; and through the study of this book and of the Bible, as explained by this "key," the tobacco habit was destroyed; and that is a testimony in itself. Suffice it to say that when the impulse came to throw away a cigar about one third smoked, I obeyed; and I have never had a desire to smoke since. During these years there have been many deep waters to pass through,—physical, financial, and social problems to solve, that made the road seem difficult at times; but with every overcoming there has been spiritual progress.

I do not think any one will blame me for having a great deal of love and gratitude for the one who proved to me that Christian Science heals. And it has enabled me also to demonstrate this healing truth. Not blaming me for that, how can any one blame me for having a great deal more love, a great deal more gratitude, for the one who wrote Science and Health, which enabled a student of that book to restore to useful manhood a human derelict, whose healing and sincere desire to help others has in turn restored hundreds, who in their turn are doing the same; thus enabling men to be "kings and priests unto God"? This man's healing and my own are like grains of sand compared to those given each Wednesday evening in Christian Science churches and societies around the world. My wife and I are especially grateful for benefits received through class instruction, and that our immediate family are also interested.

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