Christian Science has blessed my family for five generations. My maternal grandmother was healed of asthma through Christian Science at the turn of this century after doctors could not help her. As a result of this healing, four of her children, including my mother, became earnest students of Science.

My parents entered my sister and me in a Christian Science Sunday School at an early age. We, too, have found in Science a way of life that is most rewarding.

My first testimony appeared in the Sentinel during World War II. I told my healing of hay fever, which has been permanent. During the great Depression my father's newly established business almost failed. My mother and father turned to Science wholeheartedly. Each morning before my father left for his office, my parents read together the Bible Lesson, as outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly. The business survived and prospered.

An epidemic of influenza struck our town when I was a small child and claimed the lives of children as well as adults. I became ill with this disease and actually lost consciousness. Through the prayers of a faithful Christian Science practitioner and my parents' care for me, I regained consciousness and was fully healed.

When my two little girls were small children I was under stress most of the time because of a severe marital challenge. I prayed daily for God's guidance. The following passage from Miscellaneous Writings by Mrs. Eddy seemed to apply to my situation: "Even your sincere and courageous convictions regarding what is best for others may be mistaken; you must be demonstratively right yourself, and work out the greatest good to the greatest number, before you are sure of being a fit counsellor. Positive and imperative thoughts should be dropped into the balances of God and weighed by spiritual Love, and not be found wanting, before being put into action. ... Wisdom in human action begins with what is nearest right under the circumstances, and thence achieves the absolute." My marriage did end, and later I met and married a wonderful man who has been a loving husband and stepfather for over thirty years.

Our children were raised to adulthood without medication of any kind. The few times they were ill they were quickly healed by our own prayers or with the help of a practitioner.

I can never be thankful enough for having had exemplary parents who taught my sister and me to put Christian Science first in our lives. Both parents had class instruction in Christian Science and served in many capacities in their branch church. My precious mother lived into her hundreth year. She was in possession of all of her faculties and walked without a cane.

I have recently finished a three-year term as First Reader in my branch church. The blessings accrued from serving in this post were many, but most important, it impelled spiritual growth.

To say that I am grateful for Christian Science seems inadequate. Our dear Leader, Mrs. Eddy, says it best in Science and Health: "To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done."

Evelyn Meadow LaBan
Englewood, New Jersey