Testimony of Healing January 15, 1944 Issue

I first came into contact with...

C. E. Bridget Blake

I first came into contact with Christian Science because I believed in the reality of divine guidance. This guidance led me to apply for a special post in a residential college, and I was appointed. I soon noticed one member of the staff always left Sunday breakfast early, disappeared on her bicycle, and arrived back rather late for dinner. On inquiry, I found she was a student of Christian Science and attended services regularly at the nearest church, nine miles away. I heard of many occasions on which her knowledge of Christian Science had demonstrated the healing power of Truth and Love; therefore, when my need was great I turned to this student for advice. She lent me a copy of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and before I had been reading it six weeks I knew I should always want a copy of this book for my own. Having bought a textbook, I decided to attend a Sunday service, and did so. I knew then that I had found my church home, and I am grateful for the privilege of attending Sunday and Wednesday services regularly ever since. But for Christian Science healing, such attendance would not have been possible. It was necessary at first to bicycle the nine miles there and back. I had never before ridden through traffic or in the dark and was afraid of the experience; but love of Church overcame the fear. Sometimes, after a full day's work, fatigue seemed very real. One Wednesday I was bicycling home up a steep hill, and I found these words stealing into my consciousness: "It's a queer sort of church that expects one to come out to a service when one is thoroughly tired with the day's work." Then the true thought burst in: "The Christian Science church expects nothing of the sort; it knows you are not tired!" There, in the middle of that hill, all sense of fatigue disappeared. One Wednesday I started for church in the dusk and suddenly a pedal fell off my bicycle. I saw at once error was trying to keep me from the service and I knew it could not; I was able to catch a bus about half a mile away, which got me to church during the first hymn. One Sunday morning I was attacked by violent sickness. Before I knew of Science, I used to allow an experience of this kind to prostrate me for a day or two. This time I fought it vigorously, declaring its unreality whenever it seemed most real. When the suffering died down. I asked myself, "What would you do if this sickness were as unreal as you have declared?" The answer was. "Start for church." So I bicycled the nine miles there and back and was completely healed. This certainty that nothing can prevent our attendance at church protected me throughout my term as Reader.

I am grateful that the Church Manual was put into my hands soon after I began to read Science and Health. It showed me as nothing else could do that the Church of Christ, Scientist, founded by Mary Baker Eddy, is independent of all personality. I was grateful also to learn that the branch church where I attended services would not consider an application for membership till it was known that the applicant had been an earnest student of Science for at least two years. I am grateful to God for all the privileges that lie in the path of a student of Christian Science.—(Miss) C. E. Bridget Blake, Penarth, Glamorganshire, Wales.

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