On this program Mrs. Jeanne Dixon of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, told of her own experience, as follows:

I'm a professional drama and speech instructor, so you can see I depend on my voice quite heavily. Once years ago, before I was interested in Christian Science, I had serious difficulty with my throat. At that time, the surgeon who operated on me said that if there was a recurrence of this trouble at any time, there would be no further help for me, surgical or otherwise.

I wasn't troubled with my throat again until some years later. Then I became desperately ill with a large swelling in the throat which affected the tongue and jaw to such an extent I could not speak. It became almost impossible to swallow and breathe, and there was considerable pain. I wanted release from suffering at any price; in fact, I was tempted to welcome death as a means of escape, as apparently I seemed to be at the point of passing on. By this time I had become a Christian Scientist. I called a Christian Science practitioner, who quickly perceived the urgency of the situation. He pointed out clearly and strongly the spiritual facts of being—that God was my Life, and that divine Life was reflected in living, not dying. Also, that in reality man has no choice but to be the active reflection of divine Truth and Love.

The practitioner spoke to me of the purity and perfection of God and the consequent purity and perfection of man as His reflection. Then I began to see and understand that divine Truth, which is God, destroys all belief in pain or death, and that regardless of apparent pain I could think in terms of spiritual truth. This prayerful thinking would bring life, not death, into my human experience.

These wonderful truths made me see that it was preferable to face the belief of pain and remove it, as well as its source, through God's power, rather than to accept the belief of death as an escape. As these things became clear to me, the sense of despair and suffering lessened within just a few moments, and there was a great sense of peace and gratitude. Within a few days I was again active in my work as a speech instructor; and ever since then I have been in normal health, without a trace of any throat difficulty.

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 160 from the Christian Science Hymnal, with words by Mary Baker Eddy.

The commentary was as follows:

A moment ago you heard Mrs. Dixon describe a proof of God's power that came to her through reliance on prayer.

Friends, this is not a remote and isolated example of God's power to heal and save. Quite the contrary. In fact, such healings are occurring every day in the experience of those who have learned through Christian Science the healing power of prayer.

Right in your own part of the world, perhaps on your own street, there are neighbors of yours who have had specific and practical proof of Christian Science in daily living. Great and wonderful things have come to them through putting their trust wholeheartedly in God.

Would you like to know the kind of prayer that brought healing to Mrs. Dixon? It was prayer based on spiritual understanding of God. It wasn't blind belief in God, or wishful thinking. You see, Christian Science gives one a deep understanding and conviction that God is divine Spirit, deathless Life, unfailing divine Love. We put this understanding to active use in prayer, acknowledging that God is the source of all real existence, and that this true existence is spiritual, not material.

In prayer, as taught in Christian Science, we recognize that the real man—your true identity—is entirely spiritual. He is the perfect idea of perfect divine Mind. So here and now, man reflects the perfect health, wholeness, and deathless Being that is God. God's man, being wholly spiritual, is never at the mercy of physical conditions.

Our guest brought her thinking into harmony with divine Mind, God, by realizing these spiritual facts. She recognized the impossibility of God's man ever being cut off from divine Life, or being placed in danger by disease. She learned that nothing could keep her from expressing man's God-given purity and perfection—that in divine Life all action is harmonious, governed by God's law. As she accepted these truths, they not only wiped out fear, but all pain as well. And with the removal of fear and despair, the physical evidence of disease vanished.

So prayer in Christian Science is the clear knowing that God is the only power, the only presence, the only Mind, or Principle of the universe. It is the firm conviction and understanding that the healing Christ, Truth, is immediately available—as was shown by Christ Jesus. It is the same power of prayer which Jesus proved when he said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch forth thine hand," and the hand was restored.

If you are a stranger to Christian Science, your first comment may be, "Such prayer must be too difficult for me to understand." This is not the case. Most of the Master's followers were humble people. Yet they understood his message. They only needed to be receptive.

Some of the most easily understood statements of Christian Science are in the opening chapter of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. This chapter is entitled "Prayer." It begins with this statement: "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."

Friends, that's simple enough, isn't it?

Our guest proved the truth of this statement. She proved the power of prayer, for she was healed quickly and completely of a serious throat condition. She proved that in God's allness, goodness, perfection, and ever-presence there can in reality be no such thing as disease. In the same way the ever-present Christ, Truth, heals sorrow, impurity, lack, and frustration. For these are no part of God's real creation, which is eternally perfect.

Through such prayer, each one of us can experience God's healing love and care for man. In the words of Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 231): "If God heals not the sick, they are not healed, for no lesser power equals the infinite All-power; but God, Truth, Life, Love, does heal the sick through the prayer of the righteous."