Testimonies Blog

This lady lives at 340 Napier Street, Fitzroy. In July 1883, she came to see me, accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Powell, Sr., of St. George’s Road, North Fitzroy, and my dear wife. For two years and nine months she had been under the care of some of the ablest surgeons in Melbourne, of whom she specially named Dr. George Teague and Drs. Ray, Sr. and Jr. The cancer in the eye had totally destroyed sight, and for many months the left eye was totally blind. No hopes of recovery were held out. Operation in the eye was both impossible and useless, and, in her then condition, operation would have been fatal; and Dr. Ray said to her husband that she must die when her child was born, if not before.

The agony she suffered was extreme, and, being comparatively young, with a large family and a delicate husband, she had a natural desire to live. Moreover, being an active Christian worker, she desired to be useful in God’s service here. She was then, and is, a fully consecrated believer, enjoying the blessing of holiness of spirit, and desiring purity also of body. She came expecting immediate healing. After prayer, I laid hands upon her left eye, in the right corner of which there was a large swelling, with a small opening, through which an offensive cancerous discharge was always oozing, the principal tumor being an encysted one behind the eye, extending towards the brain. Then happened, in a few minutes, a miracle of healing. The cancer burst, and poured out at the small opening, in a steam of cancerous matter, quickly filling two large pocket handkerchiefs. Then the swelling disappeared the opening closed, and after anointing the eye I asked her, did she expect to see clearly when she opened her eye? She replied, “Yes.’ In the name of the Lord Jesus, I then bade her open her left eye, whilst I covered her right with a handkerchief. She did so, and could see perfectly, looking at once out at the window into the bright sunlight, and reading a small type Bible, and even its marginal references. The restoration of sight was immediate, perfect, and remains until this day.

On the anniversary of her healing, she quilted with that one eye—bandaging up the other—the outline of a sprig of leaves in black thread, on a piece of black linen and wadding, by a kerosene lamp at night, on her sewing machine, with which she earns her living as a tailor. The internal cancer disappeared from that day, and a few months later she became the happy mother of a healthy child. This lady has frequently testified in public, and her case has been published far and wide in many newspapers, and never once challenged. This lady testified shortly before we left Melbourne on Lord’s Day, December 4th, 1887, four years and a half after her healing, as is narrated in the Record of our Annual Commemoration Pages, and the photograph above engraved was handed to us by her when she with her little boy who was not to have been born, and, all her other children and husband hovered around us with a great company of our friends as a vessel was about to leave the port of Melbourne. We frequently hear concerning her and always that she remains to this day in perfect health, and among our treasures we still number the little pieces of black cloth which she quilted on the night of the day on which her sight was restored.

Excerpt from the 1894 “Leaves of Healing” Magazine edited by John Alexander Dowie.