I wish to express gratitude for the many healing benefits I received from the application of Christian Science while serving in the Navy. My first proof of its efficacy came after I volunteered for a particular branch of the Armed Forces but was rejected on the grounds that the X rays taken of my chest gave evidence that I could not be accepted even for noncombatant duty. I at first contested this with the medical officer in charge of the recruiting, but then realized that he was not the judge of the real man's perfectness or his capabilities, and that I had but to establish the facts about man in my own consciousness. To do this I consulted a Christian Science practitioner, who very lovingly encouraged me, so that, although I had been warned that they had the strictest physical examination, I was accepted by the Navy as being in A-l condition. This was just two weeks after the first X rays were taken, and so it was evident that the material senses are false even when backed up with material science. Several months later I was able to pass the medical test for Commando training, which was considered somewhat unusual at my age, since many applicants much younger than I were unable to stand up to the severe tests through which we were put.
Later in my training, when fully fifty per cent of the personnel at a large training establishment were either hospitalized or much affected by an epidemic of influenza, I succumbed to this suggestion, and after becoming unconscious on the parade ground, I was carried into the hospital on a stretcher. I regained consciousness before being examined and was able to declare to myself the truths about the real man as they are so profoundly put in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. After going through the usual tests and finding no evidence of that for which they were looking, namely influenza, the doctors decided on a blood test, this being to them an infallible method of discovering the alleged germs. Before this test was completed I was able further to clarify my thought on God and man made in His image, with the result that I was immediately dismissed from the hospital as having no evidence of the disease.
While going through seemingly unbearable experiences at sea, I was greatly uplifted and even joyous on occasions when there seemed no possible material reason for being so. For these experiences I am more grateful than I can put into words to Mrs. Eddy for the practical knowledge of the Christ she has given to the world. I also wish to express gratitude for the attendants at the Christian Science Rest Rooms, who did so much to make us feel at home and in so doing enabled us to enlarge our limited sense of home.— Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
