In what was literally the darkest...

Johannes Lange

In what was literally the darkest hour of my life, I learned of Christian Science. My gratitude for its teachings will no more cease than will the light and the strength imparted to my family and me through this Science.

Although I had tried for many years when I was young, with all the devotion and faith at my command, to live according to the teachings of the Bible, my efforts did not prevent my falling finally into utter despair. Immediately after this, the optic nerve in both eyes became inflamed, resulting in progressive blindness.

The various treatments I underwent failed to arrest the condition. I was thereupon officially declared incapable of earning a living and was given a pension. Thus I found myself in mental and physical darkness.

A friend then called my wife's attention to Christian Science. It did not appeal to me, for I had lost all hope. However, because my wife urged me to attend a Wednesday evening testimony meeting in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I went with her, and after the meeting I asked a practitioner for help. It was given with great patience and devotion, for which I shall always be wholeheartedly grateful.

I was read to frequently from the Christian Science textbook. Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, and in this way the Bible became more comprehensible to me. For the first time in my life I learned to my great relief that the evil which apparently threatens us, the darkness which seems to surround us, has neither power nor reality, since there is only one power, God, infinite Mind.

I began to see that man is created by God, is therefore perfect, and must remain so forever. My sincere prayer at this time was (Ps. 43:3), "O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles."

I tried to fill my mind with spiritual facts only and to drop all the fears and limitations which are so commonly held by mankind and which had been instilled in me. In this way I learned that vision is not dependent upon optic nerves, lenses, and retinas, but is an ever-present faculty of the all-seeing divine Mind, which man as the creation of God, manifests eternally.

Through the practitioner's enlightening explanations and through what was read aloud to me from Mrs. Eddy's writings, I regained my happiness and confidence. To be sure, great patience was required, and I still had to go through many a dark valley. But the more my thinking was filled with the absoluteness of divine Life and the more I denied an injury or an imperfection of true vision, the more my ability to see returned. I regained my eyesight, and I can now carry on to the full extent my work as an accountant.

Thus, in my case, Mrs. Eddy's words on page xi of the Preface to the textbook have been confirmed: "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation.'"

Through Christian Science, we have become a joyous and happy family, and it has been our privilege to experience many beautiful instances of divine Love's tender care.—Johannes Lange, Berlin, Germany.

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