Testimony of Healing April 6, 1929 Issue

Through the understanding of Christian Science I have...

Ethel Toulmin

Through the understanding of Christian Science I have been redeemed from so many ills of the flesh that I consider it a privilege to testify to the efficacy of this spiritual method of healing and regeneration. As a child I longed to know God, and as I grew older many puzzling questions to which there seemed no answer presented themselves. But the desire for enlightenment was insistent, and so "I applied mine heart to know, ... and to seek out ... the reason of things." I began and continued for some years a daily reading of the Bible, so gaining much of historical and literary value, but little of its spiritual import. I read books and articles on religion, questioned religious teachers, and took part in the church activities of several denominations, eventually uniting with one; but nowhere could I find a satisfying solution of the life-problems which so puzzled and disturbed me, and which grew more insistent with the years. Finally, I could no longer accept teachings which failed utterly to meet my needs in illness, sorrow, and untoward conditions, and found myself discontinuing Bible reading and church attendance and drifting away from the old anchorage; but this falling away from the accepted beliefs made me very fearful and unhappy, and many times I echoed Job's cry, "Oh that I knew where I might find him!"

In the early part of 1908 I had several attacks of appendicitis for which I had medical treatment. After ten days' illness from the last attack, I was taken to a hospital, where an operation was performed. A fecal fistula resulted, and I remained in the hospital for three months. Two doctors and a nurse did all that medical skill and kindness could do; but I was finally dismissed with the verdict that the fistula would never heal without another operation. Throughout this experience I prayed continually that God would reveal Himself and show me how to avail myself of His help; but how obstinate and blind is mortal sense, for when, on leaving the hospital, sad and discouraged, Christian Science was presented to me with the loving assurance that it could heal me, I failed to recognize it as the answer to my prayers and refused to have anything to do with it, feeling even a pitying resentment toward the ignorance that would suggest such a remedy for such a condition!

The fistula continued to distress me, and I remained for a year more or less regularly under the care of the doctors, at one time submitting daily for six weeks to a treatment which it was hoped might effect a cure, but which only resulted in confirming the original verdict. Both my husband and I feared another hospital experience for me; and so, disheartened, I decided to make the best of an evil matter. I had no further treatment for the fistula, but continued a remedy for kidney trouble and numerous remedies for constipation, which had become chronic; also, I doctored without relief for an internal displacement. Added to these was acute mental depression, a constant foreboding of evil, resulting partly from the physical state, but even more from a growing fear that God either could not or would not help His children in times of sickness and distress.

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