I first commenced reading Christian Science literature...

Louis K. Phillips

I first commenced reading Christian Science literature in the spring of 1904. I had seen something of its healing power in the restoration of sight to a friend. The first paper which I read on the subject impressed me as the truth, and for the first time in my life I felt a desire to own and read the Bible. I purchased a copy and one of Science and Health a short time afterward, and from that time to this I do not remember passing twenty-four hours without reading something from both books. In all my previous life I had not read three chapters in the Bible. I have always believed in God, yet somehow He seemed so intangible and far away that I never stopped to think of Him; but now, thanks to Christian Science, I commune with Him daily.

At the time I commenced the study of Christian Science I did not know that I needed physical healing, but after reading about two weeks I attempted to demonstrate what I had learned, and healed a severe burn almost instantaneously. Since then I have parted company with innumerable habits and ills, among which were drinking, smoking, and a rupture that had been considered a life companion. A fever contracted in Florida about a year after I had taken up Christian Science, presents what is probably one of the most remarkable healings I have experienced. According to mortal mind and materia medica, it dated from a wetting received one afternoon while out driving. According to Christian Science it dated from a mental state produced by resisting prejudice and antagonism. About the middle of the third day after the exposure, a high fever came on and I went home about half past four in the afternoon, after a vain effort to wear it off by force of will. Going to my room, I proceeded to reason "from cause to effect in the Science of Mind" (Science and Health, p. 467). I knew that God is All, and made all, and that all reality was like Him, good; and presently I found myself wondering how there could be any evidence of such a thing as a fever. The next that I knew it was seven o'clock and my mother had awakened me to come to supper. I was feeling better and perspiring slightly, so I went down-stairs. On returning to my room I began to declare the truth again, and once more I fell asleep. When I again awoke it was eleven o'clock. I had not a particle of fever, but felt hungry and ate something. Returning to bed, I immediately fell asleep, and did not awaken until morning, and then was perfectly well; every vestige of the fever had left and it never returned.

As the foregoing must show, I believe in Christian Science. Not because my father did, nor because others do, but because I have proved it by actual experience to be the truth. Christian Science is disclosing to me each day man's relation to God, the first and only Cause of all creation. I am as absolutely certain that good and good make good, as I am that two and two make four. All the joy that I experience in life to-day is due to Christian Science, and should I not be grateful to her who, with undaunted courage born of a consecrated trust in God, opposed alone a selfish but needy world, that she might give it surcease from its chaos and misery. When thinking what is due Mrs. Eddy, I feel that this is holy ground, and I dare not tread it until I prove step by step by my daily life that my feet are no longer shod with material belief, but with spiritual understanding.

Louis K. Phillips, Columbus, Ind.

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