I have known of Christian Science...

Geoffrey Edward Tewson

I have known of Christian Science for most of my life, having been brought up in the Sunday School. Except when notifiable diseases were reported in my childhood and when I was in one of the armed services during the Second World War, I have not been subjected to medical diagnoses. Christian Science has been my only physician. I owe to it my continuing health and much more besides.

The first time I recall turning to the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, for healing was when as a young boy I was bitten by a dog. I was away from home at the time and not among Christian Scientists. Those around me expressed fear about the effects of the bite. I went off on my own and read several pages of Science and Health. This removed all sense of fear, and there were no more expressions of fear from others. A quick healing followed.

Some years ago I was troubled with stomach pains and recurrent toothache. The attacks were intermittent, and I allowed myself to think that I could put up with a little discomfort. One day I realized that I had also been experiencing a sense of confusion. I decided to do something about it at once; so I rose from my desk and walked to a nearby Christian Science Reading Room. As I walked along, my thought now alerted, two words recurred to me as I began to pray about the difficulty. They were "discord" and "decay." I realized I was believing in both.

In the Reading Room I looked up the words in the Concordance to Science and Health and discovered that in three places in the textbook Mrs. Eddy uses them together. I studied along the lines of the three citations. In about twenty minutes I experienced a feeling of calm. The mental confusion ceased and so did the pain. Neither the stomach pain nor the toothache returned.

I should like also to tell briefly of the help Christian Science has been to me in business. Some years ago I encountered a difficult period. The organization for which I was working was in a bad way, and human relationships were discordant. The ship seemed to be sinking, and the performance of some of the would-be survivors was not pretty to watch. To some extent, at least, I became involved in the confusion, and I was also beginning to get worried about the future, both for myself and for those who worked with me.

I went to a practitioner and asked her for help. I remember that she told me I must stop relying as wholeheartedly as I was on mere human planning. I realized the need of radical dependence on Truth, and I worked systematically along the lines of Mrs. Eddy's words: "At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you" (Science and Health, p. 571). As a result of the practitioner's prayer and my continued work with the Concordances and our Leader's writings, I began to grasp, as I had not done before, that harmony is a demonstrable fact, that all men are in reality the children of God, evidencing the divine Principle by which they are governed.

An opportunity came to me to change my employment, and I felt it right to take it. I found that here too there were strained relationships to be handled. On this occasion the situation was quickly and permanently healed. This experience taught me a great deal about the importance of gaining more understanding of God, divine Principle, and of turning away from human personality.

Christian Science has led me beside the still waters, and I have had the deep satisfaction of seeing it accepted and applied by my wife and children.—Geoffrey Edward Tewson, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England.

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Testimony of Healing

I should like to express my gratitude...

July 1, 1961

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