A sheltered corner

The following is a direct quotation from this month’s study Christian Science Wartime Activities (WW). Readers will find it on pp. 267-268:

It was a sailor boy who stood, one Saturday morning, reading the sign, "Comforts Forwarding Committee." 

At first it seemed to mean nothing to him; but surely, if slowly, its promise and appeal worked its way through the shell-shocked, gassed and horror-stricken mind, to the inner consciousness, where it met a response. He crossed the street, opened the door and walked in. The steady rays of unchanging love surrounded him. Little by little his petrified thought relaxed; little by little, stuttering, gasping, sighing, his story came forth; and when the effort to speak became too great, he finished the tale in writing. 

After more than a year of service in the army "over there," after going over the top and experiencing the full import of those words, what was left of the once stalwart lad had been sent back to his Texas home. But no home awaited him. His widowed mother, having married again, had closed her heart and her house to the shattered hero. 

Turned from her door, he came to Uncle Sam, to offer such service as he could then render in the merchant marine.

Seated in a sheltered corner of the Comforts Forwarding Room, the homeless one was gently led to relax, and confidently rest in the mother love there shown him.

Was there no church to help him?

"Oh, mercy, no, I never went to church; but my people are Protestants."

"How did you happen to come in here?" 

"I don't know. I was across the street." 

"I know ; it was because we can help you." 

"That is impossible. (A sigh.) I am so lonesome." 

"If you stay in this city we will give you something to do."

"I wish I could do something for you." 

The conversation closed with the gift of a Sentinel*, a pamphlet and an invitation to come again Monday morning.

At nine o'clock there stood the boy, happy, whistling.

"I went to your church yesterday; ain't it fine!" 

No mention of the church had hitherto been made to him, but he had found a notice of it in the Sentinel, and even the pouring rain could not keep him from its doors. His happy visits to the Comforts Forwarding Rooms continued, until his ship put out to sea; and it was a very different boy who said, "Good-bye; I shall come to see you on my return."

*Christian Science Sentinel

posted by Joyce Voysey