Testimony of Healing August 27, 1932 Issue

About twenty-six years ago a Christian Scientist took...

Oscar Murray Hudson

About twenty-six years ago a Christian Scientist took charge of our home, and to be courteous I frequently attended the services and lectures, and also read some of the periodicals, as well as the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. But I was not much interested, and seemingly failed to understand what had been heard or read; so that when we parted, at the end of two years, I paid no further attention to the subject of Christian Science. The ensuing five years were the most distressing in my experience because of business troubles of a serious character and a nervous disorder, variously diagnosed as neurasthenia, nervous prostration, and chronic neuralgia, for which dieting, exercise, bathing, medicine, and a change of climate brought no relief.

At last a business friend persuaded me to attend a Christian Science lecture. Something I heard at this lecture sent me to my office shelf for the textbook, which had been placed there. This time it was studied, and the effect was a gradual change of thinking, thereby improving the physical condition and leading eventually to complete recovery. The process was slow, but I was impressed by the words in one of the parables of Jesus, "Occupy till I come," referred to on page 22 of Science and Health. I had found it true, as Mrs. Eddy has said (p. 120), that "health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind."

Certain habits of a lifetime became insensibly obnoxious, and although their disappearance was resisted, as their loss seemed to mean less happiness, greater and more lasting satisfactions replaced them. The desire for smoking, although very tenacious, was finally overcome by the action of Truth. Moreover, the business which for years had yielded much anxiety and a meager income also felt the effect of purer thought and prospered rapidly. Instead of trying to get as much and to give as little as possible, I learned the wisdom of Jesus, who said: "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom;" and I began to give genuine service without first regard to recompense, which came freely as the inevitable consequence of the spiritual law of good. A sense of personal responsibility changed to the humble acknowledgment that the intelligent conduct of human affairs is but the manifestation of divine intelligence, so that success is not due merely to human effort.

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