Speaker: We're going to talk about some family problems today, and how prayer can solve them. We feel this subject is such an important one that we've decided to devote our entire time to it today. Our guests are Mr. and Mrs. John H. Melton, of Stillwater, Oklahoma. They have three sons, and over the years they've had some fine healings while their boys were growing up.

Mr. and Mrs. Melton, we know that as Christian Scientists you people have relied on God in meeting your problems, but I'm sure our listeners would like to hear your basis for doing this.

Mr. Melton: Well, it all goes back to the first healing my wife had.

Mrs. Melton: Yes, that was before we were married. It was while I was attending the state university at Stillwater. I became so ill and weak I could hardly walk. I lost weight rapidly, and my vision was affected too. Finally I had to be taken home. My parents called in specialists, and after they'd made numerous tests, they said I was suffering from a blood disease for which there was no known cure. They told my parents I had only about five weeks to live.

Mr. Melton: And it was right after that, wasn't it, that your friends got you to start going to the Christian Science church with them?

Mrs. Melton: Yes, it was. Somehow I found the strength to go, and at the services I felt a great sense of peace. And the most wonderful thing was that the overwhelming fear I'd felt was gone. For the first time in my life Bible passages really meant something to me. They seemed applicable in this day and not something long past. I felt that the healing Christ, Truth, which Jesus revealed, was here today, that it was present right here and now. And I had such a great sense of God's love for man. It really was a revelation to me. I kept on attending those church services, and gradually I grew stronger. After a few weeks I was feeling so well that I insisted on going back to school.

Mr. Melton: She'd been healed; she was completely well again!

Mrs. Mellon: It was a remarkable tiling. I was able to carry on all my activities again, and I felt strong and well. But in spite of this wonderful healing, I didn't begin to stud}' Christian Science seriously until several years later, after we were married and our eldest son, Henry, was born.

Mr. Melton: We had quite a problem; he couldn't digest his food properly or even retain it.

Mrs. Melton: We had so much trouble with him; we practically had a doctor almost daily. Finally, when he was nearly a year and a half old, I took him to two specialists in Tulsa, and there was nothing they could do. They said the child didn't have a proper digestive system; it just hadn't developed, and he simply couldn't live.

Then I really turned to Christian Science. I felt I had to understand God better, because this seemed too great a load to bear. I began reading the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.

Mr. Melton: I started reading it too; we really studied it every day.

Mrs. Melton: And as we read, it came to me that the truth contained in that book was all we would ever need for our own health and the health of our child. So we dispensed with material remedies, and from that day to this we've relied entirely on God.

Mr. Melton: For me the Bible began to be an open book. I could see the thread of spiritual meaning running all through it. And the Lord's Prayer—I'd repeated it almost every evening since childhood before retiring, but I'd never thought of it as an acknowledgment of God's goodness and all-power, but, rather, as just a petition for something.

Mrs. Melton: My thought was so uplifted; it was as if a veil had been drawn aside. I began to realize that man is not actually material, but that he is a spiritual idea of our Father-Mother God, because, as the Bible tells us, man is created in God's own image and likeness, the likeness of divine Spirit. And I realized that God is infinite Life and that man, His image, can never be sick or die.

Speaker: You certainly were beginning to understand some of the basic spiritual truths that bring healing in Christian Science.

Mrs. Melton: The results showed this, because within a couple of months our boy was completely normal.

Mr. Melton: And Hank hasn't had any trouble since.

Speaker: Now let's see, this was Henry, or Hank, we've just heard about. And the other two boys are—

Mr. Melton: Donald and Roger.

Mrs. Melton: Donald was healed of crossed eyes.

Speaker: Would you like to tell us about that?

Mrs. Melton: Well, he was quite small at the time, and for about a year we tried to work out the problem through our own study and prayer. But finally we asked for help from a Christian Science practitioner.

Mr. Melton: The practitioner kept us busy studying passages in the Bible and Science and Health, and quite often we'd read aloud to Donald.

Mrs. Melton: She was very insistent that we stick with the truth of man's spiritual being and stop looking at the problem. We were learning a great deal all the time, gaining a clearer understanding of God and man. We knew that healing comes through this understanding. There's a Bible passage that meant so much to us. It's in Isaiah, where it says, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight."

Mr. Melton: And that promise was certainly fulfilled, because within six months Donald's eyes were completely straight.

Speaker: These experiences you've told us illustrate so well how an understanding of God, divine Truth, and of man's true, spiritual nature has a healing effect on the body. Mrs. Eddy brings this out in Science and Health, where she writes (p. 425), "Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew."

Mrs. Melton: We've had so many proofs of that statement. Another one was Roger's healing of deafness.

Speaker: Now that's your youngest boy, isn't it?

Mrs. Melton: Yes, that's right. He was very small at the time.

Speaker: We'd be interested in hearing about him too.

Mrs. Melton: Well, when we discovered Roger couldn't hear, we were almost overwhelmed with grief and discouragement. We called a practitioner right away, and again we found how necessary it was to really live the truth constantly; that is, to keep our thought in line with God, perfect God and perfect man in His likeness. In everything I did, even when I would walk down the street to the grocery store, I would try to keep my thought on the things of God: thoughts from the Bible, or hymns, or something from Mrs. Eddy's writings. It was a very joyful and rewarding experience.

Mr. Melton: We both tried not to dwell on the problem but to lift our thought above it to what is really true of God's child. And by the time Roger was ready to enter school, his hearing was normal.

Mrs. Melton: The school required a physical examination; so I took him to a friend who was an eye, ear, nose, and throat doctor. And when he examined Roger's ears, he could tell that a healing had taken place, because he said: "This is the most remarkable operation I've ever seen. Who performed it?" I told him there'd been no operation; it had been a Christian Science healing.

Speaker: It has been interesting to talk to you both about your family and to have you share with us all these fine healings. Thank you so much, Mr. and Mrs. Melton. You've certainly made it plain that prayer does bring healing.

Friends, you've heard a few of the ways in which the correct understanding of God which Christian Science gives has helped this family and of how it's freed them from suffering and trouble, giving them a solid foundation for living and meeting all their problems.

The basis for these proofs of God's care is found in the inspired Word of the Bible which tells us that God is all-powerful and that He's good, "a very present help in trouble," as the Psalmist says. In the Bible we read that God created man in His own image and likeness, and in Christian Science we realize this means that nothing can be true of man which isn't in harmony with God. Man is actually perfect and spiritual, because God is divine Spirit, and sickness and disability can have no power over man since they have no power over God.

In proportion as we lift our thought above the physical evidence of discord and see man's spiritual nature, this true understanding destroys fear, and discord yields to harmony.

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 81 from the Christian Science Hymnal (God is with me, gently o'er me).