Hospitals, ships, and prisons

On to the Navy and to the East Coast of the USA where ships departed, taking the servicemen and women to Europe in 1918. The Christian Science Worker was provided with a boat. Hear this report from page 147 of Christian Science War Time Activities (WWI):

           "Daily she carried me out to the ships and around them. I always had some of the Comforts articles aboard and gave away from her decks altogether over 1100 articles, including 135 bedquilts, 420 pairs of socks and 350 sweaters. During the last month I operated her, she visited 226 ships, and I gave away personally on those ships nearly 10,000 copies of the Monitor, not including subscriptions.”

And,

           "You can imagine it was strenuous work to take 100 to 150 Monitors under your arm, and, standing on the front deck, with spray and water breaking around your knees, run up to a gangway in a heavy sea, and just step aboard at the right instant, but I did it without mishap hundreds of times."

And page 152-3:

           A naval Worker arrived in Portsmouth, at the time the so-called influenza was at its height. Upon reporting to the Commandant, it was learned that the hospital was congested, and there was a shortage of nurses due to sickness and recent detachments, creating a serious situation. The services of the Worker were volunteered and accepted, and in the hospital spiritual work was combined with the material care of sick nurses and men in the influenza wards. Wards of terror-stricken men, witnessing the death of comrades, were calmed and encouraged, and many patients thought to be very ill were found up and dressed the following day. Sick nurses stopped taking medicine and in some cases requested the text- book*. The death rate at once diminished and in twenty-four hours reached the zero mark.

*The Christian Science textbook, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy

There was a prison at this camp. Here is a snippet:

           To tell in any detail the assistance rendered to the men in the prison would make a long story. Cases of rheumatism, stricture, influenza, mental unbalance, cocaine habit, and venereal diseases are among the dark images of disease which have vanished before the sunlight of Truth. p.155

I find it interesting that the Y.M.C.A. is frequently mentioned as working closely with the Christian Science workers.

There is much written about the work, in France, of setting up Christian Science Centers (sic) and of distribution of literature. There are always recorded instances of healing and appreciation of Christian Science, and of folk taking up its study.

Here is a quote about The Christian Science Monitor at La Mans:

        "Musicians and booklovers have sent in for the Monitor from a considerable distance because of special interest in the music and literary pages. A chess player came in to pick up back dates for chess problems and many other men have come up to make a study of the editorials, declaring that the Monitor had given them their first grasp on the world issues, in a big way." p. 201

And on page 202:

         "We have had some very interesting experiences with French, Belgian and Russian investigators of Christian Science. During the first four months nearly two hundred inquirers presented themselves. Some of these proved to be earnest students and had interesting demonstrations, many times entirely through the study of Science and Health. These have endured, and in one instance at least, the student is proving his faith by healing others."

From Paris:

           Much impersonal healing work was accomplished in the hospitals as the following incident related by one of the Workers will indicate:
"In one of the buildings visited, a boy who had been shot through the lungs, repeated the Lord's Prayer all day and thus overcame 'the last enemy.' The supervising nurse had asked the Monitor visitor to talk with the lad. 'He will probably live but a few hours,' said she, 'and he's from your town.' This boy, who knew nothing of Christian Science (and of course the subject was not mentioned to him), had lost his Bible at Chateau Thierry. 'I knew when I did,' he gasped, 'that it was all up with me, because I had carried that Bible with me everywhere.' 'But you did not lose the Lord's Prayer,' he was reminded, 'and you could really use that prayer all day, actually use it for breathing. Just substitute it for breathing if you're a little short of breath. Will you promise to say it all day?' And he promised.

            "Two weeks later the Irish nurse who had him as her particular charge, almost shouted: 'Why, John, there's that lady who talked to you the day you were so bad, and haven't I often been thinking of it since. That was the day you got well, John.' Later, the boy was presented by the Committee with a Bible. He held the book a moment to his face, tenderly caressing it, and quickly slipped it under his pillow. 'There is nothing,' said one nurse, 'which the boys so thoroughly love as a Bible.' " pp, 206/207