“Most of Us Came from Our Graves”:

Healings and Experiences that Impelled Early Workers to come into Christian Science

. . . remembering as I did that moment that I had just escaped from years of imprisonment myself; remembering that right behind me there sat a man who had while lying in prison during the  war contracted a disease that had prostrated him for twenty years; and that he had been healed; remembering that at my side there sat a women whose mother had died in an insane asylum and she herself had been taken to the asylum; remembering that at my other side there was a women who for six years had been trying in vain to be healed of asthma, had just been healed by Christian Science; remembering these and a great many other things, I said to her: “Most of us came from our graves.”

(Edward Kimball, Lecture at Bloomington Chautauqua, CSJ, July 1894)

As I was about to leave, [Mrs. Eddy] turned to me and , with much earnestness, asked: “Captain, why don’t you heal your wife yourself?”  I stood spellbound.  Never for the moment had the possibility of my becoming a healer dawned upon me.  I did not know what to say, or think.  Finally, I stammered out: “How can I heal my wife!  Have I not procured the best medical aid, – and, to leave nothing untried, added to that my own medical knowledge?  What more can I do?”  Gently she said: “Learn how to heal.”  Without hesitation, I returned to the parlor for particulars . . .

(Joseph Eastman, “The Travail of My Soul,” CSJ, April 1892)

Humbly and reverently I again opened the pages of Science and Health,  but this time with no other motive than an honest desire to find the God who is Life and Love, and not the source of death and sorrow.  I said, “He is here; others have found Him, and I can find Him, too.   As in the case of our dear Leader, “the search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope” (Science and Health, p. 109).  It is true that the old obstacles often seemed to come up as before, but instead of stopping to argue, I would say, “I do not understand that now, but I know I shall;” and go straight on . . .

(Louise Knight Wheatly, “To Beginners; From One of Them,” CSS, July 20, 1907)