Testimony of Healing May 30, 1931 Issue

I have experienced the wonderful healing and sustaining...

E. Ralph Kooken with contributions from Arlee Edna Kooken

I have experienced the wonderful healing and sustaining power of Christian Science through all the problems of the past fifteen years. At a time when medical science held out no hope whatever, and after my one last hope—that of a higher altitude and a cooler climate—had completely failed, I was let to investigate Christian Science. I was utterly exhausted and in despair when, for the first time, I took up the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I immediately felt the invigorating and uplifting effect of a higher hope. As a boy I had earnestly sought to know God, and had occasionally spent whole nights in prayer. But the materialism of the schools was too much for the few glowing religious experiences of early youth, and I had long since resolved God into nothing more than that which could be explained by chemical and physical forces.

After reading the Preface to Science and Health and seeing that the teaching planted itself unreservedly on fundamentals which, if true, were entirely revolutionary in their nature, and gaining thereby a great relief from physical weariness and pain, I was greatly moved, and a new hope sprang up within me. As I read on through the chapter entitled "Prayer" I knew for a certainty that I could be healed. Sleep came easily that night, and the next morning I awoke to a new world.

I was teaching school at the time, and took the book with me to read during a vacant period. When the students had all left the classroom I opened the book and the thought occurred to me that if the premise of the teaching was really true,—and I hoped with all my heart it was,—if Mind was all and matter naught, I must be able to prove it in little ways. Here were my glasses. Oculists had tole me never to read without them on penalty of permanent and irreparable injury to the eyes, an admonition which was unnecessary, for the simple reason that even large print was difficult and very painful for me to read. I laid the glasses off, expecting to put them on again if I should find it necessary, but to my surprise I found myself still reading without them at the end of the hour. I have never put them on since; and although I have read a great deal, both night and day, my eyes have given me no trouble.

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