Testimony of Healing April 9, 1938 Issue

About thirty years ago, when I was teaching in a boys'...

Louise Poor Ustick

About thirty years ago, when I was teaching in a boys' private school in New York City, I became ill with jaundice. My physician said that it was the worst case he had ever seen. Since we had no substitute teachers in the school, it was quite necessary for me to be in my classroom at the end of the spring vacation. But it did not look as though I could ever do so. A cousin, who had seen a friend healed most remarkably through Christian Science, recommended that I try it. I did not know much about this Science, but I recalled that one of our teachers was a Christian Scientist. I got in touch with her, asking for the name and address of a practitioner. She replied that she did not believe I should need one, but that she would borrow the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, for me from the Reading Room. Before I had read many pages a complete healing took place. When I called to report to my physician, he said that he had never known a severe case to clear up so quickly and completely. For a few months I attended the Christian Science church services; but I was not ready for spiritual progress. And so I returned to the church to which I had always belonged, even becoming quite antagonistic to Christian Science and Mrs. Eddy.

There followed many bitter lessons, but for every chastening I am deeply grateful, as it proved our beloved Leader's words (Science and Health, p. 361), "A germ of infinite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven, is the higher hope on earth, but it will be rejected and reviled until God prepares the soil for the seed."

Nine years ago an acquaintance urged my husband to turn to Christian Science for a trouble which had held him in bondage for many years. After a year's deliberation, he finally purchased the textbook, which from that time seemed never to be out of his hands. I thought it splendid for my husband to take up this study, but as for me, I was satisfied with my church, and not in any urgent need of physical healing. When my husband would tell me something that Mrs. Eddy had said, I would most ungraciously challenge it. But it caused me to become curious to the extent that I commenced to read the book. This I would do for a time, and then would want to throw it away. I continued in this unlovely state of thought, even after a healing of a cyst tumor through the loving work of a practitioner, until my husband said, "It would seem to me that you should take your stand, and either decide for Christian Science or return to your church." This church had been holding me mesmerically through its ritualism. My husband's statement of truth broke the mesmerism, however, and not long afterward I sincerely wanted to become a member of The Mother Church. In due time this privilege was granted me.

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