Testimony of Healing September 2, 1933 Issue

My parents gave me a careful religious education, and...

Johannes A. M. Tilanus

My parents gave me a careful religious education, and on attaining manhood I tried to live according to my religion. In the hour of trial, however, it failed me, and for a number of years I turned against all religion and became a materialist, so sentencing myself to years of misery. I became addicted to drinking, smoking, and gambling to such an extent that my domestic relations were seriously threatened. I had promised many times to leave drink alone, but although I had tried sincerely I could not stop. Then despair seized me, but in my darkest hour I remembered the God of whom my mother had taught me in my boyhood, and I prayed, "Oh, God! if God there be, help me."

God answered this prayer. Next day a friend called on my wife to offer her Christian Science. Knowing my objection to religion, she tried to hide the books from me, but I demanded to see them and she handed me "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. I had never heard of the book or the writer, but opening it at the chapter on Prayer I commenced to read. Within a few minutes I knew that I had found salvation. I questioned our friend about Christian Science, and, sincerely desiring to make a fresh start in life, I promised to study the books she left. The next day being Sunday, I walked three miles and traveled another twelve miles by train to attend my first Christian Science service. My wife was most astonished, because I had not been inside a church for years; but in Christian Science I found the truth which I can never lose.

The following week my wife was reading a testimony of healing from the Christian Science Sentinel to our seven-year-old daughter. This child had been told by eye specialists that she would have to wear glasses for the rest of her life. On hearing the reading she said to her mother, "If God can heal these people, He can heal me; and I need not wear glasses." Her mother admitted the fact in theory, but fear made her insist that the child should continue wearing glasses. The following day when our daughter came home from school her mother allowed her to remove her glasses for a short time in order to rest her eyes. No sooner were the glasses removed than the little girl said, "Mammie, I can see Woody Point quite clearly." This was a promontory some miles away, and the child had never been able to see it without her glasses. From that day to this she has never worn them. Her mother, too, had been wearing glasses, but shortly after this they broke, and she never needed them again.

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