For over thirty years I have received many blessings from the study of Christian Science, and with deep gratitude I would like to relate some of them.
I was a regular soldier in the British Army during World War I, and it affected my health. I contracted malaria and dysentery and suffered from gas poisoning. In Palestine, I was afflicted with diphtheria; and owing to the depleted state of my health, the medical authorities recommended that I stay in hospital in Cairo and be certified for a pension when I got back to England. But meanwhile the war had ended, and I was anxious to get home. Furthermore, I did not like to think of myself as a sick man. As time went on, my health gradually deteriorated; and I had to quit my job as a coal miner. This, coupled with inability to care for my wife and five children, caused me seriously to doubt the existence of a good God, and I came to believe that there was only evil for myself and others who had had to pass through the fires of war.
In October, 1936, I found a book in the local library dealing with the subject of the conquest of fear. Though Christian Science was not mentioned, the omnipresence and omnipotence of God was, and this lifted me to a great extent out of the helplessness and hopelessness in which I had become engulfed. I had heard of Christian Science only once, but now I felt it might have something to offer me. So one Sunday evening I entered a nearby branch Church of Christ, Scientist. I did not understand much of the Lesson-Sermon which was read, but I felt I had reached home after years of wandering.
