Testimony of Healing November 22, 1924 Issue

One of the duties that I was asked to perform on board...

William Cassius Yarnold

One of the duties that I was asked to perform on board the United States destroyer on which I served during the war, was that of decoding messages that were received by radio. One day SOS calls repeatedly came to us from a freighter which had been torpedoed and was sinking with eighty-four men on board. As we were but one of the six destroyers that were escorting a convoy of troop ships, we had no authority to leave our position to give assistance to the crew of the doomed ship. As the calls became more frequent and urgent in their appeal, I became resentful over the fact that nothing was being done for these men; and as I struggled with this sense of things the thought came to me that here I was, the only Christian Scientist aboard, and I was fretting because no material steps were being taken for a rescue, when the thing for me to do was to go to my books and know the truth,—that would really be doing something for them. Accordingly, in a few minutes after my watch was completed, I went to my office; and with my feet braced against a bulkhead and the back of my chair agaist a cabinet, in spite of the heavy roll of the ship I read from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. In a few moments I experienced a beautiful sense of God's nearness and His tender, loving care, and in a small degree the realization came to me that He was caring for all His children and that assistance would be given those men in distress.

Near nightfall, after taking my station, I was overjoyed to learn that the admiral had selected our ship out of the six destroyers in the escort to leave the convoy and rush to the aid of the men who had taken to boats and rafts, with specific instructions that we must return to our position in the convoy by daybreak the following morning. We made all possible speed, and by midnight were at the reported position. Although the night was dark and the sea very rough, we were enabled to single them out by the flashing of their pocket flash lamps, of which they were making good use; and after some hard work and maneuvering of the ship we rescued all of the eighty-four men who had taken to the lifeboats. The first faint beams of morning found us in our regular place in the convoy.

Many beautiful proofs of God's tender, loving care for His children were given to me during my service in the cause of humanity, for which I am most grateful. Some time after I had returned to my former employment, I was showing to a friend, who was not a student of Christian Science, my honorable discharge. After reading it he returned it and said, "It is an excellent record, but this is what appeals most to me,"—and here he pointed to the certificate of the medical officer which stated, "Number of sick days during enrollment: None." I had many things in a physical way to meet during the period this medical certificate covered, but God was my only physician. As one instance, I was able to overcome an attack of Spanish influenza in about an hour one evening by reading from one of the writings of Mrs. Eddy.

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