When our family arrived in England from the Argentine in 1961, my dear mother gave me a set of the Bible and Science and Health, as she wanted me to have my very own textbooks to use and study. As a young girl of 13, I started making notes in the blank pages at the back of my Science and Health – notes of my favourite lines for easy and quick reference.
When I looked at that very early copy of the textbook recently, I noticed that the very first pencilled entry at the back of the book was: “BORN AGAIN, Fruitage chapter, page 667”. Even as a young girl, this testimony had moved me deeply as I read and re-read it.
After many years of trial and challenges, the author of this testimony wrote: “But the last hour of the night had come, the dawn of day was at hand; a dear friend left Science and Health upon my piano one day, saying that I would gain much good by reading it.
Glad to get away from my own poor thoughts, I opened the “little book” and began to read. I had read only a short time when such a wonderful transformation took place! I was renewed; born again. Mere words cannot tell the story of the mighty uplifting that carried me to the very gates of heaven...” What a state of mind to have reached!
There is one particular sentence in the testimony which has always been a great help to me over the years when dealing with memories of hard times and difficult experiences. The author wrote, “For a long time I was always looking back to see if the error had gone, until one day when I realised that to catch a glimpse of what spiritual sense means I must put corporeal sense behind me”. Looking back at our past human history is never helpful, as Mrs. Eddy admonishes us in her Retrospection and Introspection: “The human record needs to be revised, and the material record expunged”.
We can be so grateful that Mrs. Eddy was guided to close her textbook with this glorious record of healing and fruitage simply by reading Science and Health. As our dear Master said so long ago, “By their fruits ye shall know them”.