As a token of gratitude for many blessings, I should like to offer this testimony of some of the demonstrations of God's care my family and I have experienced through Christian Science. I attended the Sunday School as a child, and although I drifted away from participation in church activities and from daily study of Christian Science during my teens and early twenties, the truths I had learned sustained me in times of need.
During a bombing raid in World War II our airplane was severely damaged, and we crashed into the North Sea. The eight surviving members of the crew, including myself, were crowded into a small four-man rubber boat. Because a heavy sea was washing icy water over us, our survival seemed in doubt. I prayed as best I knew, and although I do not believe I could have quoted the twenty-third Psalm before, all the words came to me. I lost my sense of fear and gained a confident sense that we were not alone. As night fell and the situation became extreme, a plane passed on the horizon. We attracted its attention by firing five of our six flares and were rescued. The strength of God's presence felt in this experience led me back into the study of Christian Science.
Another progressive experience followed the birth of our second child. Born seven to eight weeks prematurely, he was very small and had trouble in breathing. His situation grew worse until it was thought that he could not last through another day or so. We had called a practitioner, and I began to apply as much of the truth as I understood. My wife, who up to that time had not been very much interested in Christian Science, studied earnestly. Also I knew that a newborn child could know nothing of disease and so could suffer only from false fears held over it, chiefly by its parents.
