Testimony of Healing August 12, 1922 Issue

It is about nine years since I attended my first Christian Science...

Robert Clarke Moore

It is about nine years since I attended my first Christian Science service; and I have great cause to rejoice that I was led to take a step which is continually bringing into my life innumerable blessings. It is with the desire to help others as I have been helped, that there is lovingly offered this testimony that "the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save."

It was during the winter of 1917–18, when the time came for me to take my place in the outpost lines of the British army on the shell-blasted slopes of the Passchendaele ridge, that the understanding I had obtained of Christian Science was put through the severest tests, and proved, indeed, a present help in trouble. I am deeply grateful for the many opportunities that were afforded for quiet study before the time of trial came, and for the help that was always so lovingly given by practitioners and friends. Christian Science taught me that as man was made in the image and likeness of God, Spirit, my individuality—my real selfhood—was indestructible. I learned that God never endowed shells, bombs, and other instruments of war with any terrible potency to destroy His children, and that they were even powerless to harm mankind when they held fast to the truth that God is ever present, omnipotent Love, the Love that "casteth out fear." This does not mean that simply by claiming my sonship with God I found an easy path before me, or that I was not called upon to face situations where danger and death seemed imminent. I found, however, that through it all there was with me an abiding sense of God's presence which lifted me above the outward conditions, and brought me through unharmed. I had many instances of protection while serving overseas, and proved the ninety-first psalm demonstrably true, not only for myself, but for those under my command.

I should like to recount one instance of how Christian Science helped me, and protected all the men with me. I was placed with my platoon in a very much exposed position in the front line. We were clustered in small, fragile shelters around the remains of a house of which only one wall was standing, at right angles to the front line, thus presenting a target about eight inches wide. One morning, the enemy artillery began to shell this place, firing once every minute. It was quite impossible for us to leave our position, and the shells were falling uncomfortably nearer and nearer. Then I remembered the sentence in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy (p. 571), "Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you." I realized that no shells—no expression of hate—could penetrate where God is, and God is ever present, always protecting man, His idea; that in God's consciousness love is supreme, and that fear and hatred have no place and no reality because they are opposed to God, to infinite Love. I saw clearly that God is supreme, and that all I had to do was to trust Him. The next shell fired was the last, and fell nearest to us; and, although it covered our shelter with débris, no one was harmed in the least. The next morning the shelling began again; but I knew that a demonstration once made was always made, and only three shells fell—each one farther away from us. We were on duty there two more days, and were not molested. I was intensely grateful for this wonderful demonstration of protection; but my realization of God's omnipotence was helped in a very great degree when I had to revisit the post on the next night. It was quite altered in appearance. The officer who had taken my place told me that only one shell had been fired at them, and this shell had struck the very narrow target presented by the edge of the wall, completely demolishing it and scattered the bricks thickly on the adjoining shelters, strengthening them; but no one had been touched.

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