I thank my parents for putting me into a Christian Science Sunday School infant class. And when I was twelve, they encouraged me to join The Mother Church. There were times when I considered that I had taken this early introduction into membership too soon. The redeeming features, however, were that I never desired to smoke or join in with those who took alcoholic drinks. In my teens it was out of a sense of loyalty to The Mother Church that I did not commence these habits. I have never felt embarrassed when refusing a cigarette or alcoholic drink. On the contrary, I have always felt gratitude.
Coming into my teens was a testing time for me. My mother passed on. During the years to follow I began to look upon the month in which my mother had passed on as my unlucky month. I had to meet attacks of colds and biliousness—always some form of discomfort or sickness.
Because of the 1939-1945 war I had to go into the Army just after finishing Sunday School, and for a short while I drifted away from the teachings of Christian Science. But fortunately two events helped straighten out my thinking. In North Africa, a Christian Science Wartime Minister found me and gave me a small book containing about thirty hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal. This small hymnal was a source of great comfort to me when I became one of the victims of a dysentery epidemic. I felt the power behind the words of Hymn No. 99, which commences:
