Testimony of Healing January 22, 1949 Issue

Christian Science breaks mesmerism of suffering

Bernice Beal

Christian Science and its activities have been known to me since early high school days through the healing of a friend's mother of a so-called incurable disease and through the presence of The Christian Science Monitor in our public library. In the case of the friend's mother, the doctors had diagnosed her illness as Bright's disease and heart trouble and given her six months to live. Since it was my privilege to be in and out of her home many times both before and after Christian Science treatment was requested, the healing of this woman and the changed atmosphere in the home made a profound and lasting impression upon me. As for the Monitor. I recognized at once its superior quality and frequently picked it up from the library table to read. Freedom from prejudice for the words "Christian Science" can be attributed to this early and favorable contact with the Monitor.

Shortly after leaving the Middle West and coming to California, where a number of my friends and relatives had become interested in Christian Science, I too decided to take up the study. Several years later my testimony was published in the Sentinel, relating the healing of what a prominent surgeon had called chronic appendicitis, for which he advised an operation. With the help of a Christian Science practitioner, but without an operation or further medical aid, this healing was accomplished and has been permanent. Although for some time I continued to believe myself an ailing mortal needing physical healing. I was gradually to learn that man's only real need is to understand God. As this understanding has unfolded in consciousness, the human needs have all been met—not, however, without earnest study on my part and a sustained effort to give up sick and sinful mortal beliefs for the glorious fact, as revealed in Christian Science, that man is spiritual and exists as God's complete and perfect reflection of good. The more time and thought I have been willing to devote to the things of Spirit, the richer proportionately have been my blessings in mental awakening and regeneration, expressed outwardly as better health, a better home, and more abundant supply.

A demonstration of the healing power of Truth which has always meant much to me occurred when I was suddenly attacked with an acute, continuous pain in one of my ears. After some hours of earnest mental work and study, with no apparent results, it seemed wise for me to call a practitioner, who came to the house the following morning. His firm insistence that man is not both material and spiritual, but entirely spiritual, served to break the mesmerism of suffering which had bound me. As I clung to his statement, "There are not two of you; there is only one," the false sense gradually faded into its native nothingness, so that by evening I was comfortable and able to attend a church business meeting. There was no recurrence of this difficulty; neither were there any aftereffects from what doctors would probably have called a gathering in the ear resulting from a heavy cold.

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