During the past year I was...

Ernest W. Bryant

During the past year I was taken suddenly ill and had to take to my bed. Being in the service I was obliged to have a doctor examine me, but he was unable to diagnose any particular ailment. After a day without any physical sign of improvement another doctor was called, who also was unable to give the condition a name. He told me I had several symptoms of different ailments, but not all the symptoms of any one in particular. I was greatly comforted by this, knowing that a "house divided against itself shall not stand" (Matt. 12:25). The two doctors, in consulting together, decided that it would be better if I went to a hospital to be kept under observation.

Upon arrival at the hospital I was once more examined, this time by the house physician, who found the same confusion of symptoms. The hospital surgeon was then called. After examining me, he decided that I had appendicitis, and that he would operate on me that night. I immediately got to work to know the truth about my real selfhood and that of all men; also, I had to cast out the fear of an operation. I knew that the surgeon was in reality a child of God, governed by the same Principle as I was; that he had no wish but to get me well in the best way that he knew.

I was examined again during the evening, and this time I thought the surgeon looked a little puzzled; but he told me that there was another man in the ward upon whom he would operate first, and then it would be my turn. I read almost continuously from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, especially the chapter on Christian Science Practice. A conviction of the absolute government of God gradually developed in my thought; the outstanding passage to me was (p. 424), "Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony."

At ten o'clock the other man was taken to the operating theater and was brought back at midnight. An hour later the surgeon came into the ward and talked with the orderly. I was still thinking about "God's unerring direction" when the orderly came and told me that I would not be operated upon that night, but would be kept under close observation until the morning. Right then I knew that the demonstration was made. I was unable to go to sleep because of the half-hourly pulse and temperature taking; therefore I had plenty of time to rejoice in man's good health and in the ever-presence of omnipotent divine Mind.

When the morning came I felt absolutely well, and was told, after another examination, that whatever I had had I was getting over it rapidly and would not need an operation. I was feeling hungry, and was allowed to eat. The next day I was told I could get up. The following day I was discharged from the hospital as "fit for active duty."

There were two things connected with this experience which impressed me greatly. First, because of the indecision of the doctors as to what was wrong with me, I was not given any kind of medicine or drug to take during the whole of my short stay.

Secondly, on my second day in the hospital, when I was allowed to walk around the ward, a South African pilot called me and asked me if he could borrow the Christian Science textbook. He had seen me reading it constantly, knew that I had been due for an operation, and had seen me get suddenly well. He told me that he had attended a Christian Science Sunday School, but since leaving it at the age of twenty years had drifted away from Christian Science activities; now his interest was aroused again. I was able to give him the name and address of the Christian Science Officiating Minister in Italy to whom he could write and thus obtain copies of the books and literature. I was also able to lend him my spare copies of the Bible and Science and Health for as long as he required them.

I am very grateful for this experience and many other examples of God's protection and love with which I have been blessed during the five years I have been serving with the R.A.F.—(Flight Officer) Ernest W. Bryant, Sidcup, Kent, England.

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Testimony of Healing

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