In 1910, my parents gave me a Bible on my seventh birthday. I still had it and read it fairly regularly until about twenty years ago. Then one evening, during a discussion on religion with friends, one of them lent me a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This was the first time I had heard of Christian Science. I am unable to describe with words the joy that came with the understanding of my Bible that Science and Health gave me. I hardly bothered about eating until I had read through this incomparable companion to the Bible.

Perhaps I should mention that Science and Health came to me on the very day I resolved to quit smoking and set a better example to our children. I had tried unsuccessfully before, but as I read and grasped something of my divine nature as a child of God, this, my first healing, was instant and permanent.

Our home and farm was, and still is, two hundred miles from any branch Church of Christ, Scientist. I soon applied for membership and was accepted. I am very grateful for the loving encouragement I received at this time, and for the provision made in the bylaws of the branch church for country members regarding church attendance. I am grateful for membership in The Mother Church. Study of the weekly Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly enables country members to feel they belong, and the periodicals bring inspiration and encouragement in the articles and testimonies.

An experience which has given me much joy came while we were on holiday in Great Britain about ten years ago. While my wife and I were enjoying our first visit to the west of Scotland, I was suddenly impelled to return to East Anglia, arriving at my sister's home in the early hours of the next morning. Then, after a short sleep and breakfast, I continued on to my brother's farm in the next county. There I was met by my sister-in-law, who said, "Elizabeth is very sick. Will you come up to her?" I went at once. Their baby of about one year tried to lift her hands to me, so I asked if I could take her up. When I did, I noticed that she was not soft and pliable as a baby should be, but stiff like a board. While I carried her around, showing her the sparrows on the beech tree and the ducks on the moat, I gratefully realized how much we loved each other and how much God loved us both. Soon Elizabeth sighed, relaxed in my arms and felt normal again, so I put her in her cot, where she slept, I was told, until early the next morning, when she awakened her parents by jumping up and down in her cot. Before I had arrived, my brother and his wife, who believe in healing by prayer, had arranged, when Elizabeth did not recover, to take her to hospital. After my visit, although the baby seemed quite well, they decided to keep the appointment. Doctors ran certain checks and found that she had meningitis, but they could not understand why the virus was neutral, or dead, as they put it.

I did not see Elizabeth again for about eight years, when I was greeted by a lovely affectionate schoolgirl blooming in good health.

In Australia, to please a club-mate (who said that at my age I surely needed a lens to put in the rear sight of my rifle, which I use for competitive range shooting), I went to an optometrist who specializes in helping riflemen. After the test he said my eyes were too good to need a lens yet, but that he was sorry to have to tell me a cataract was developing, and he advised me to go to a specialist. I thanked him and said I knew a Christian Science practitioner who would be able to help me. I had had eye discomfort for some time. Within the year, with the prayerful work of a devoted practitioner, the healing took place. When I again visited the optometrist about four years later, he said the cataract had completely subsided. I still do not know which eye it was in!

The Psalmist expresses my feelings about these and many other healings and problems solved (Ps. 103:2, 3): "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases."

I only hope that if this, my first written testimony, is published, it will encourage someone who lives far from any church to go ahead and join, for I find Christian Science a most practical religion, providing fully for all its students.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 494), "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need."

I am grateful to God for His loving care for all His children, and also to His Son, Christ Jesus, for giving us Christianity. I am also grateful for Mrs. Eddy, to whom God revealed Christian Science.

Thomas H. R. Rose
Bodallin, Western Australia, Australia