Testimony of Healing July 20, 1940 Issue

As I look back upon the moral and religious training of...

Bess T. Joyce

As I look back upon the moral and religious training of my youth, I see very little which guided me into paths of right thinking. My mother passed on when I was a child, and the impression I now have of my youth is of years of unhappiness and discontent. When I reached the age of twenty-five, after several emotional upsets, I awoke to the realization that my way of living had no true foundation; that I was not only drifting, but sinking.

About a year before this I had come into contact with an earnest student of Christian Science, and I had been very much impressed with the depth and clarity of her thought. And so I began attending a Christian Science church, and within a year had had two remarkable healings; and joined a branch church. From that time I have never resorted to any healing agent but Christian Science, and have been greatly blessed. But the healing of immoral characteristics has been slow and difficult.

On page 405 of Science and Health our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, says: "Christian Science commands man to master the propensities,—to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, to conquer lust with chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with honesty. Choke these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of conspirators against health, happiness, and success." After many years I began to realize that I was not meeting this demand; that I often held in thought hate, lust, revenge, deceit. I had enjoyed the privilege of class instruction, and had had continued help and support from my teacher, and I felt it incumbent upon me to justify my claim to be a Scientist. I began earnestly to pray that evil thoughts might be uncovered and destroyed, so that I might behold the Christ.

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I am deeply grateful for having learned through Christian Science...
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