Testimony of Healing October 30, 1926 Issue

Rejected as physically unfit for war service, my vocation...

Robert H. Shannon

Rejected as physically unfit for war service, my vocation as a contractor demoralized because of war emergency, I enlisted my services in the Hog Island shipyards, placing myself at the disposal of the employment department. I was placed in the riveting school to serve as apprentice for two weeks; then was assigned to duty on construction work on one of the ships. While engaged in this work I passed through an experience which unfolded to me more of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, because it required absolute reliance upon the grace of God, on His protecting care and healing, all of which are so clearly elucidated in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy.

I had made it a practice to study the Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly every morning before breakfast, when it seemed that the truths these lessons have for us could be better assimilated; and I attribute the consciousness which enabled me to realize the Christ-healing so effectively to the understanding I had gained of the truths these lessons contain for all seekers of a better understanding of God and man's relationship to him. We were admonished by our foreman to use only white-hot rivets in the riveting of a fuel tank in the hold of a ship. While we were working under the high pressure of the keen necessity for ships for troops and supplies, often to the disregard of safety precautions, one day my foot slipped, due to insufficient scaffolding in the tank, causing me to release the heavy piece of steel used to hold against the head of the rivet while the riveter drives or flattens the hot steel on the opposite side.

The release of this bar permitted the rivet to be driven without an instant's warning from its proper place, with seemingly great force, directly into my left eye, which was less than eighteen inches away, the full force of the blow, in addition to the white heat of the rivet, making contact with the unprotected eyeball. Instantly the fear of loss of vision, accompanied with excruciating pain, came into my consciousness, together with all the false laws which I had been taught as a child. The "still small voice" of the Christ, Truth, however, flooded my consciousness with the true sense of vision and the truth about God and man in His image and likeness. The audible declaration of the "scientific statement of being," as given on page 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, with the conviction of its truth, quieted all fear; and with the overcoming of fear the pain subsided and I received an instantaneous healing of the belief that I had been painfully injured or burned. From the time of the accident to the realization of the truth that makes free and my healing, less than fifteen minutes elapsed.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

Several years ago I came into Christian Science