Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

entirely healed of another ailment which had been with me all my life, and which was believed to be inherited. Since that time my growth has seemed to me slow, yet when I look back and view myself as I was before Christian Science found me, and compare it with my life as it now is, I can only close my eyes to the picture and rejoice that I have been “born again” and that I have daily been putting off “the old man with his deeds,” and putting on “the new man.”

Some of the many things that have been overcome through the study of Science and Health, and through realizing and practising the truth it teaches, are profanity, the use of tobacco, a very quick temper, which made both myself and those around me at times very miserable, and such thoughts as malice, revenge, etc. - O. L. R., Fort Worth, Tex.

HEALTH AND UNDERSTANDING GAINED

Most of my boyhood days were spent in the hands of physicians. From birth I was considered a very weakly child, but my mother was brave, and being much devoted to me did everything within her knowledge and power for my comfort. Sickness and medicine were continually before me, and by the time I reached my teens I thought I knew a material remedy for every ill. I continued in my delusion, because I was never told the real cause of my trouble. Besides being under a leading specialist for two years, I was also an outdoor patient at a noted hospital, but I was not healed. It is wonderful how the “little ones” are cared for in the face of all these seeming difficulties. I always used the prayers that I had been taught, and as I grew older I began to ask for wisdom. Little by little I gained a desire for freedom, and my prayers finally led me to the truth. The first week that I heard of Christian Science, I visited the home of dear Christian Science friends, and was at once refreshed by their purity of thought and example. I bought a copy of Science and Health, and, after studying it a little while with the Bible, I saw that if the Bible was true, Science and Health must also be true. I began to demonstrate over my physical and mental condition, and as soon as the fear and pain began to leave me I felt encouraged to go on. I was healed, and stopped complaining. I kept on studying our textbook, and when I got an understanding in a small degree of the Science of Mind, my first thought was to help others. I was guided where I could progress in Science, and was no longer “carried about with every wind of doctrine,” but held to Principle as closely as possible. From the time the healing came into my consciousness, the desire for material remedies left me, because Christian Science at once pointed out the way to get at the cause of discord and disease. All that I had to give up were the false beliefs of mortal mind. Christian Science then taught me to love the church, and to appreciate what it had already done for mankind. I often thought of the old adage, “Charity begins at home,” and after three years’ preparation I felt able to take Christian Science to my home, where it found, in due time, ready acceptance and willing disciples. This gave me even greater joy than my own healing. The more good I saw accomplished, the more love I had for the truth. Christian Science changed my course from the first, and gave me a nobler aim and purpose in life. I was not so easily influenced by other people’s shortcomings, when I learned that evil has neither personality nor place. I was not so ready to take offence, when I found out the way to work unselfishly for the upbuilding of the Cause. - A. E. J., Toledo, Ohio.

AN EVER-PRESENT HELP FOUND

On the 23rd of March, 1900, I received from one of my daughters a copy of Science and Health on my seventy-first birthday. Although a constant reader of all kinds of papers and books, I had never heard anything of Christian Science, except a short notice that spring in a San Francisco newspaper, from an orthodox clergyman, referring to the Christian Science people in not very complimentary style.

In Mrs. Eddy’s book I came across a great deal of thought that was not readily understood at the first reading, but by continued and careful study, and a good deal of help from my knowledge of chemistry and natural philosophy, I soon shook off the belief of sensation in matter, - the so-called elementary substance. One afternoon I put the belt on my circular saw to cut blocks of firewood and also to split a small stick of frame timber. In doing this the stick closed and pinched the saw. I picked up a small wooden wedge and tried to drive it into the saw kerf, but a bit of ice let the stick on to the back of the saw and instantly it flew, with heavy force, into my face, and bouncing off my left cheek fell about twenty feet off on the snow. The blood spattered on the snow next the saw table, and on feeling with my hand there were two wounds, one on the lock of the jaw and another forward, as big as a dollar, on the cheek bone. “Now,” I thought to myself, “there is a case of surgery for you,” and without further ceremony, I began to treat the case to the best of my knowledge, with the result that the bleeding stopped almost instantly, and so did a thumping pain, which had commenced. I paid no more attention to the matter, but finished my work, and then went to supper. When I washed my face, I felt a big lump on the jawbone where the block of wood struck, but after my usual reading I went to bed and slept all night until near daylight, when a pain on the right side awoke me. On feeling with my hand there was another big lump on the right side, but I treated it and went to sleep again. I never lost an hour from the hurt, although I found out that my jaw was broken. There is no scar, only a little red spot on the cheek, and the lumps on the bone have long since disappeared.

In summing up the benefits I have received from the reading of Science and Health, I can but refer to a condition of sickness dating back to the war (1862), when chronic and malignant diarrhea came near making an end of my material existence. My hearing, also, was seriously impaired from the effect of cannon firing at Shiloh, but it has come back to me, and where I formerly dared not eat an orange, or grapes, I can now eat anything without being hurt. My peace of mind is giving me a rest which I never experienced before during my life, and I have ceased to look away off for the divine presence that was always near, though I did not know it. - L. B., Baldy, N. M.

MANY PHYSICAL AND MENTAL TROUBLES OVERCOME

Less than a year ago, when nothing but trouble seemed to encompass me, I was led to Christian Science. My mother’s copy of Science and Health was always lying on the table, but I scarcely ever read it. One day, however, the mental conflict was so great I commenced reading in the hope of obtaining peace. Every day since then my companions have been the Bible and Science and Health. At that time I had a very serious eruption on my face, which had been there two years. We had consulted several physicians, and used every remedy suggested to eradicate it, but they proved useless. I had given up all hopes of its ever being healed, as the physician we last consulted pronounced it tuberculosis of the skin and incurable. A few weeks after I commenced reading, I was amazed to see it almost healed over, and to-day my cheek is perfectly smooth, while the scar is disappearing.

In April my baby was born with only the practitioner and a woman friend present. I suffered little pain, and the third day I went downstairs. I am able to nurse him, - a privilege of which I was deprived with my first child. He is a picture of health, having never been sick a day since he was born. - K. E. W. L., Mt. Dora, Fla.

A NEW LIFE GAINED

Leaving home when a young man, I carried with me a protection against the temptation of a great city, - a mother’s prayers and a small Bible. For a time I read the Bible and prayed, but without understanding. This did not suffice, and evil seemed to gain the victory. I soon omitted to read my Bible; forgot to go to God in prayer for guidance and help, and looked to the world for that which it never has and never can give, - health, peace, and joy.

Thus, years later, when Christian Science came into my home, it found me prayerless, churchless, godless; a home discordant, and with no thought or knowledge of spiritual things. Up to this time, my wife had for years been seeking health through the physicians, but without success, and as a last resort had been sent to Christian Science. The help received was so wonderful that I commenced the study of Science and Health. The first effect which I realized from the reading of our textbook, was a great love for the Bible and a desire to read it, something which I had not done for years. I went in silent prayer to God, that I might see the light and truth which would enable me to be-come a better man. “Ye must be born again.” Thus again, and as a child, was I taught to pray “the effectual fervent prayer” which “availeth much.” In a few weeks’ study of Science and Health together with the Bible, and without other help, I was healed of a desire for liquor, of years’ standing, and of the use of tobacco. Ten years have passed and these appetites have never returned. I have never used either liquor or tobacco in any form from that time to the present. Surely this Scripture is fulfilled in our home: “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” How can we estimate the value of a book, the study of which brings such transformation and regeneration? Only as we endeavor to live, and strive to practise what it teaches, can we begin to pay our debt to God, and to her whom He has sent to make plain to human understanding the life and teaching of Christ Jesus. - W. H. P., Boston, Mass.

A VOICE FROM ENGLAND

For a number of years I was a weary woman, not ill enough in health to, be called an invalid, but suffering more than could be told with fatigue and weakness. Feeling that this was God’s will, I did not ask to be healed, although I was constantly doctoring. I suffered with dyspepsia, congestion of the liver, and many other things, including weak eyesight. With all the medicine, and with different changes for rest, I never regained health, and thought I never should, so I prayed for grace to bear my cross patiently for others’ sake. One day, while lying on my couch exhausted, which had become a frequent experience, the words came to me, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” I rose, knelt down and said, O God, make me well. I was telling a friend this and she kindly gave me