Testimony of Healing August 24, 1940 Issue

I should like to acknowledge the great protection which I...

Oliver Wendell Woodard

I should like to acknowledge the great protection which I experienced while a member of the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Belgium during the World War. The understanding I had of God's presence and power, as taught in Christian Science, saved me from harm many times. During the battle of the Argonne Woods, the voice of Truth guided me from place to place, at a time when the air was filled with poison gases, and there was heavy bombing and shelling. One morning I had a premonition of danger, but after I had read the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly it was quieted. Upon resuming my work I was led to place my canteen, which I had just filled with water, behind my head on an improvised chair back, in the dugout where I was busy handling the telegraphing for the Ninety-first Division, and on special duty in the office of the chief of staff. Later, when a shell exploded in our midst, a piece of it hit my canteen. I was thus shielded from the impact. I was the only one to escape uninjured.

Many such incidents of protection showed me that my immunity was not accidental, but the result of reliance on the operation of divine law, and was proof of the presence and power of God. Not only in dire extremity are we led to the truth; but at whatever point we are, there Truth is present to help us.

I am grateful for the teachings of Christian Science. I am grateful for the Camp Welfare Workers which The Mother Church sent to Camp Lewis, Washington, to help us and to prepare us better for the ordeal which we were soon to face. I am grateful for our precious Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science. I am grateful that she was wise enough and strong enough to go through hardships and sacrifices, that the world might have Christian Science. I am grateful that I appreciate her as one divinely guided to found and maintain our Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, with all its branch churches throughout the world.

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