An Ever-present Help Found, page 673

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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.

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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

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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.