On page 410 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says: "Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger. The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love." How often have Christian Scientists found this to be true in overcoming the material conditions which present themselves and which have assumed such magnitude as to try not only their faith and love but their understanding as well.
Perhaps it may be that a loved one seems slow to yield to the purifying influence of Truth. Perhaps faith and love are tried by unlovely traits of character which may include many of the "works of the flesh" which Paul in his epistle to the Galatians tells us are made manifest. Although we are so far at these times from being able to see our loved one in the image and likeness of God, yet if we face a trial from which no human escape is possible, how quickly in our extremity we turn absolutely to God for our help and say, "What is mine is Thine." Countless Christian Science mothers have had to prove this true; they have had to pass through the trial of their faith in God when called upon to offer their sons to the great cause of Truth, or the war in which "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon," as the Revelator tells us. The fact that Michael and his angels prevailed is very comforting.
One mother has cause to be deeply grateful for the revelation of the truth which came to her one bright morning last spring, when she received a letter telling her that her only son had enlisted in an Officers Reserve Training Camp near her home and was expecting to be called at any moment. This news came as a surprise, for her son was above the draft age and she had given the matter no thought. Everything was changed for her in the twinkling of an eye. The bright sunshine seemed hazy, the strength with which she had begun the day's task seemed to slip away from her, and she sat with clasped hands and blurred vision recalling these words from the letter: "He said he never could be a slacker, for his first duty was to his country, his second duty was to his mother, his wife, and his sister to help save them from the fate of the Belgian women, and last but not least, he realized his duty to Truth, to God and the cause of humanity."
