Testimony of Healing December 21, 1974 Issue

Some winters ago I became suddenly ill

Kenneth B. Bateman

Some winters ago I became suddenly ill. Since I needed a medical certificate for my employers to give me sick leave, I was examined by a doctor, who diagnosed the condition as virus pneumonia. I knew, however, that I didn't have to accept this verdict. I had attended a Christian Science Sunday School from an early age until I was twenty, was a member of The Mother Church and of a branch church, had received class instruction and had learned of God's goodness and the perfect spiritual nature of man. Thus my reliance for healing was placed solely on Christian Science.

Treatment from a Christian Science practitioner was sought, and the high temperature abated. I was still feeling very weak. The practitioner told me I should be grateful for the demonstrations already made and regard each one as a stepping-stone to further progress and growth in spiritual understanding. And so it proved. Gradually I regained my strength.

An article in the Sentinel awakened me to the fact that I had been neglecting the instructions of Mrs. Eddy in the textbook, Science and Health (p. 442): "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake." The Sentinel article also quoted this statement (ibid., p. 458): "The Christianly scientific man reflects the divine law, thus becoming a law unto himself." I prayed for myself, endeavoring to align my thought with the law of God, good, which destroys error. And I returned to my work completely healed. In the years since, whenever I have been tempted to neglect these instructions of Mrs. Eddy's, I remember this healing with the result that the injunction is obeyed.