Testimony of Healing December 7, 1929 Issue

From earliest childhood I was reared in a Christian...

Ethel E. Smalley

From earliest childhood I was reared in a Christian home, early joined an orthodox church, and until I had grown up had never heard of Christian Science. However, after being in the business world for a few years I seemed to lose interest in the church of my choice, to wonder a great deal about God, and to question regarding religious matters. This general upset in thought disturbed me so much that I grew quite melancholy over it. I would become lonely for church, and yet when I attended the services would derive no benefit therefrom. I felt I must believe something, and yet was greatly dissatisfied with religion as I knew it.

At this time a friend mentioned Christian Science to me and I ridiculed it. Then, at the same time, I met two young ladies from England whose intelligence and fine characters impressed me so much that when I learned they were Christian Scientists I asked if I might accompany them to church. The friend who first mentioned Christian Science to me presented me with "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, after securing a promise from me that I would read it from cover to cover, so many pages a day. The promise was needless, as after reading the chapter on Prayer, I felt it was so reasonable and so true that nothing would have kept me from finishing the book. From then on I have been a student of Christian Science, and I have known no other remedy for human ills in the past thirteen years. Through its ministrations I have been healed of many physical ailments: chronic constipation of several years' standing, tonsillitis, influenza-pneumonia, and a physical breakdown. Many minor ailments have been overcome as well.

In spite of the fact that I have had so many physical healings through Christian Science, and of the further fact that the healing of physical ills seems to bulk so large, I always seem to feel more grateful for the daily good and gain which come to my consciousness through an enlarged understanding of what Life is and what it means. Christian Science is an educator in the highest sense of the term, for education is learning how to live; and surely Christian Science teaches us in the truest sense how to live aright and to endeavor humbly to follow in the footsteps of the Master. Like many another, I at first seemed to feel some prejudice against Mrs. Eddy and the frequent use of her name. I now feel ashamed to make that admission, except as it may open the eyes of another. However, I wanted Christian Science so much that nothing else mattered, and the longer I studied and applied it the more I began to respect and love its Discoverer and Founder, until finally, after I had read the entire book, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," every thought of prejudice was swept away in one grand comprehension of the wonderful love which she evidenced throughout her life; for it seemed to me that in this book, which contains so many letters written by our Leader to students and churches throughout the world, it is patent to all who read it that she invariably stepped aside and pointed her pupils on and up to God, and always stood in the position of one serving God and humanity. Surely to read that book is to love and revere its author.

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