Free Born Testimonies
from Families who have also Birthed their Own in
Practicing the Principle of Divine Science

~*~ Another PAINLESS CHILDBIRTH! The Christian Science Journal ~ August, 1888 DEAR JOURNAL: I have wanted to relate my experience to you ever since your regular and welcome visits at our house began, and let you and the world know what the Science has done for me. It restored my husband, from a condition of complete wreck, to strong manhood. Four months after my husband's cure, through Mr. Filbert of Council Bluffs, we went into the class held by him, there realizing how grand it would be for us to have sufficient understanding to be able to ward off from our family many attacks. We were surprised with far more glorious results in the power of healing. We came to this city in February, at the solicitation of friends. The following April my ten-pound baby-girl, the youngest of five children, was born. Previous to, and at the time of its birth, my husband treated me, and the result was an entirely painless delivery. Having gone through no trying ordeal, I was strong, and continued treating my many patients who came in the afternoon. The next day, Sunday, I walked around the room, and sat up for my dinner. On the following day I was up and dressed at eight o'clock in the morning. I treated my patients all day, and until late in the night. On the fourth day I went down street shopping. Many saw me, and can substantiate what I say. E. ELLIOTT. Des Moines, Iowa. ~*~ "Natural and Harmonious" OBSTETRICS. The Christian Science Journal ~ November, 1887 I HAD studied Mrs. Eddy's work, Science and Health, and rejoiced at the prospect of freedom and harmony in store for the mothers of our land, when its teaching should be wider promulgated. I had taken a course of instruction from her whose students — now scattered throughout the Union, in great and increasing numbers — regard as a Mother sent from heaven, and chosen to personify that character in all its unselfish love, unchanging devotion, and unceasing care and labor for suffering humanity. Christian Science had freed me from a belief of inherited dyspepsia and constipation, and from a discouraged and weakened condition, resulting from a period of illness at the birth and death of an infant boy, three years before. Christian Science had taught me that mortal conception, birth, growth, and decay are all delusions, resulting from a finite sense of existence, which the Truth of Being ignores. I had also learned that in Spirit, existing eternally, dwells the true idea or image of the Infinite God, perfect and free, — God, the one and only Father of all, omnipotent, omnipresent, the one Intelligence, one Life, one Love, one Truth, one Mind. It became clear to me that mortal parentage is but a fleeting, flickering sense, untrue, unreal, and therefore valueless, and should thus be regarded. Jesus said: "My kingdom is not of this world," — meaning the material sense of life. Certainly he lived this doctrine in action; for he demonstrated the unreality and powerlessness of the flesh, or anything material, in every instance, on sea and on land, rendering to Caesar the carnal things that belong to Caesar, and to God all might, majesty, and things eternal. I learned that evil (personified into Devil) is only the absence of Good and Truth, and is a lie, as Jesus said; for Truth and Goodness are never absent, being eternal. In this lie (Devil) dwells every phase of discord, fear, sorrow, sin, and death. Infinite in number and variety as the ideas of Truth, they then stand for nothing, being only a negation. All error is in the negative, and may be known by its mortality; while Truth is always positive, pure, and immortal. My cup of joy seemed full to overflowing, as all these things revolved in my thought, and I was glad to know that my life, health, and happiness were established by divine law, and not subject to physical changes or mortal beliefs. These thoughts so occupied my time that the period of gestation passed with only an occasional symptom of the discords usually attending such periods, and these were destroyed as soon as recognized. I walked any distance I chose, went up and down stairs, and stitched on the sewing-machine without cramp or fatigue. My husband, having formerly been in the practice of medicine, made it unnecessary for me to procure an attendant, and the birth took place in the early morning, with no one else present. He said he never witnessed parturition so natural and harmonious. It was almost entirely without a sense of pain. I sat up in bed immediately, and helped to attend the infant. I ate my usual breakfast two hours later, and sat up in bed during the day. The next morning I dressed and went about my room, never lying down that day, nor thereafter. I took full care of my babe, having an ample supply of milk, with none of the usual sensitiveness. My windows were on the sunny side, but we never shaded them; and baby persistently studied the blaze of the lamp and fire, and everything bright, without the least effect on her eyes. I continued my reading of a fine-print book with no ill-effects whatever. The next day I carried baby in my arms downstairs; and from that time on, went up and down as necessity required, carrying a pitcher of water from the pump, or running up with the baby, as lightly as when a child. I was busy from morn till night, as I had no nurse and was housekeeping in rented rooms, and had to meet patients and friends. It was in December, and I went out on the icy walks with low slippers and no wrap, put my hands in cold water, and paid no heed to any of the precautions the medical faction would have laid upon me. I carried baby a block when she was a week old, and took a street-car ride. They said baby looked fully a month old, and I, as well as I ever had been. I tried no experiments; for that would have been admitting the possibility of failure. My only question was, Is it right? Science had taught me that the true Christian must deny the flesh in every phase of power and reality, in life or death. Would I dare to do right? A gentleman in the house said, when he saw how I was doing, that my husband ought to be prosecuted for allowing his wife to risk her life in such a way. Another asked if I was preparing for the cemetery. ["Modern-day" opinion hasn't changed much, has it?!] My thought was, Will anyone give God the credit for supplying His children with health and strength, independent of material or physical law? Yet at times a moment of fear would come, lest the predicted effects might appear to me; but instantly a sense of guilt would succeed the fear, and I would feel somewhat, I think, as Peter must, when Jesus helped him as he was sinking; and it seemed to me I could almost hear his voice, as if grieved, crying: "Oh ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" Had I not seen sufficient proof in my own individual experience? [AMEN!] I am still at work in opposing the selfhood in the personality of the flesh, thus destroying each false claim; and when I shall see only the selfhood of God, in Spirit and in Truth, then do I hope to realize the fulfilment of these two commands, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," [including the gods of medical science] and "Love thy neighbor as thyself." ELLA V. FLUNO, Lexington, Ky. Written verifications of these testimonies are on file at the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts Our family does not hold membership in any Christian Science organization by personal choice, but enjoys Voluntary Association with the spiritual Mother Church and other independent Christian Scientists active in the Cause. PREVENTION AND CURE OF DIVORCE Boston Herald, March 5, 1905 This time-world flutters in my thought as an unreal shadow, and I can only solace the sore ills of mankind by a lively battle with "the world, the flesh and the devil," in which Love is the liberator and gives man the victory over himself. Truth, canonized by life and love, lays the axe at the root of all evil, lifts the curtain on the Science of being, the Science of wedlock, of living and of loving, and harmoniously ascends the scale of life. Look high enough, and you see the heart of humanity warming and winning. Look long enough, and you see male and female one — sex or gender eliminated; you see the designation man meaning woman as well, and you see the whole universe included in one infinite Mind and reflected in the intelligent compound idea, image or likeness, called man, showing forth the infinite divine Principle, Love, called God, — man wedded to the Lamb, pledged to innocence, purity, perfection. Then shall humanity have learned that "they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God." (Luke 20: 35, 36.) This, therefore, is Christ's plan of salvation from divorce. Excerpt from article by Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science