Speaker: What a sense of peace and joy we get when we learn that perfect health is God's eternal gift to man—and that this perfect health can he experienced right now by our gaining a better understanding of God! We have a couple here from Stockton, California Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. DePue— who proved this for themselves when Mr. DePue was suffering from a serious heart ailment.

Suppose you begin, Mr. DePue.

Mr. DePue: Well, I'd been on vacation, and a few days after I returned I began to notice a very painful condition in my chest, I kept on working, but it became so painful I could hardly do my work.

My superior noticed my condition and said I'd have to go to the hospital right away. So I came down to San Francisco and reported in to the hospital. They gave me an examination and said it was a coronary condition. I was told I'd have to stay in bed for at least six weeks. I had a lot of tests and examinations, and finally after about six months they sent me home, But as my wife can tell you, the picture was a very dark one.

Mrs. DePue: That's when the doctors told me there was nothing more they could do for him—that it was doubtful he could ever go back to work. But somehow I just couldn't accept this, and the words "Christian Science" came to my thought. I knew absolutely nothing about it. I had just heard there was such a religion.

Then one day I was in a building downtown in Stockton, waiting for an elevator; I'd been there lots of times before. But for the first time I noticed the words on a door there. They said, "Christian Science Practitioner."

I felt led to go in, and before I knew it I was talking to the kindest, most understanding man I'd ever met. I told him all about my husband's condition, and he began talking to me about Christian Science. I just felt it was the truth; it all seemed so logical. I knew there was a power greater than human circumstances, and I felt it could heal my husband. I left the practitioner's office with a deep conviction that the healing Christ, Truth, is always present and always available.

Mr. DePue: As soon as my wife got home she said, "Tom, I know there's help for you." She told me about her visit with the practitioner and said he'd like to see me. I didn't think I could make it, but the next day I got up and dressed and spent an hour with him. After our appointment my wife told me I looked like a different man.

There was a good reason—I had some hope. The practitioner kept on helping me and I began studying the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" b Mary Baker Eddy, I gradually got a completely new concept of existence, especially when I read the chapter on Prayer in Science and Health. My thinking began to change from a material sense of life to a spiritual sense.

I'd had a terrific amount of fear before I took up Christian Science, but that left me. I realized that man is actually not mortal. He's spiritual, made in God's image and likeness; so he's not subject to any form of sickness or discord. I saw that man is a spiritual idea of God, and I was going to accept that for myself.

Mrs. DePue: We tried very earnestly to do just that. After we'd been studying Christian Science about six weeks, the company told my husband to report back to the hospital. This was for another examination.

Mr. DePue: I was examined by three different physicians, and afterwards one of them said. "What on earth have you been doing?" I told them I'd taken up the study of Christian Science; that I knew in my own mind I was healed. They said: "There's no question about it. No question whatsoever. You're completely well."

And these were the same doctors that examined me before. But before I could go back to work, I had to have a white slip—that's what we call them. They gave me one without attachments of any kind, and I went back to work. That was ten years ago, and I haven't lost a day's work since.

I do yard work—I cut the lawn and spade—and go swimming. There isn't anything I can't do like that, because I realize there's no power except God's power.

Speaker: And when we realize that, then of course we've found the key to divine healing. Thank you both very much. We're so grateful for that healing and for your telling us about it.

Friends, just what was it that made Mrs. DePue so sure there was a power greater than human circumstances, a power that could heal her husband? And what was it that gave Mr. DePue such hope, removed the great sense of fear, and above all enabled him to recognize his true self as spiritual, not material?

It was their growing understanding of the ever-present, ever-available, healing Christ, Truth, which Christ Jesus taught and lived, and which is available today to meet every human need. Jesus taught his followers that they too could heal by expressing the Christ as he did. He said, "All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

It's evident that Paul accepted this teaching of the Master without question. He said in a letter to the Romans, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."

And Christian Science accepts the Master's loving assurance of God's unlimited giving, which is just as true and effective today as when he gave it. It also accepts Jesus' promise that in the measure we understand and practice the Christ, Truth, we shall be able to carry on healing, regenerative work.

Mrs. Eddy puts it this way in Science and Health, where she writes (p. 136): "Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing. He taught his followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error and heal both the sick and the sinning. He claimed no intelligence, action, nor life separate from God."

Christian Science shows that we too can rely on God with the same certainty. We can expect, as the Master did, to demonstrate the divine Principle, Love, and to express the Christ, which regenerates and brings health, peace, protection.

"Well, that sounds just wonderful," somebody may be saying, "but how do I get rid of this disease in my body, and the suffering I'm experiencing? How do I begin?"

The first step is always to learn more of the true nature of God. Why? Because the Scriptures say that man is made in God's likeness. And if we gain a clearer understanding of God—man's divine source or origin—then we shall naturally discover more of the true nature of man, his spiritual purity, perfection, wholeness. Let me show what I mean by just a simple illustration. Suppose you were planning to build a cabin in the woods, and you wanted a pure water supply. Wouldn't you search for the best possible source to make sure the water was pure and uncontaminated?

In much the same way, if we want the most useful and practical human experience, free from fear, sickness, pain, and wrong traits of character, then we must continue to gain a more comprehensive understanding of God. You see, friends, the perfect antidote for discord of any kind is this: An acknowledgment of God's all-power as unchanging divine Love. And then, a constantly growing awareness that man's true identity is the very expression of this all-power, divine Love.

When we acknowledge, with conviction, this truth of perfect God and perfect man in God's likeness, then we are accepting man's divine right to perfect health —the gift of God. We shall have the assurance of the Psalmist, when he said, "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."'

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 135 from the Christian Science Hymnal (I know no life divided).