Testimony of Healing February 23, 1899 Issue

For twenty years I was a hard drinker

Frank C. Wise

For twenty years I was a hard drinker. My father was such before me, and two brothers followed in his footsteps. Whiskey was more to me than bread and meat, and since I was twenty years old I have hardly known the time when I would hesitate between taking something to eat or something to drink; if I could not get both, I would always take the drink. I drank because I liked it, not because I wanted to get drunk, and my capacity for drinking whiskey without becoming beastly drunk was notorious. I have gone through all the horrors of the earlier stages of delirium tremens, and there is scarcely any experience that occurs in the life of a confirmed drunkard but what has been mine.

I have frequently tried to quit, but my appetite was too strong for my good intentions. My life has been passed in the West, some of the time on the frontier where no higher power was ever regarded than a Winchester or a Colts 45, and where whiskey was more generally drunk than water.

Some months ago, after three days of unusually hard drinking, I determined to make one more effort to get rid of the devilish habit that had me hard and fast. A man who worked with me had several times told me that I could be healed through Christian Science, and I made up my mind to try it. I called on a Scientist and stated my case. Although soaked with whiskey at the time, I was sincere in my desire to quit, but I did not think any power on earth could help me. The Scientist assured me that God could do it, and at my request gave me a treatment. I promised her I would try to come to church the following morning, which seemed like a foolish promise to make.

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