Testimony of Healing August 29, 1942 Issue

Christian Science brought me...

Henry Allen Nichols

Christian Science brought me healing, protection, and great inspiration during the first World War. Now that our country is involved in another war, I am impelled in deep gratitude to recount these experiences of God's presence and love.

I enlisted in the United States Army Ambulance Service, which was organized to serve the French army. When under shellfire for the first time, I huddled at the base of a wall, wanting nothing but to go to sleep and be oblivious to the threat of danger. Here I was, face to face with what I had really enlisted for—to prove the actuality of divine Love in spite of every seeming condition to the contrary. That sense of my purpose woke me out of my dormancy, and the next time the shells burst I found myself standing in the street. Before the smoke and dust cleared out of the air we had our cars going, carrying the wounded French soldiers to the hospital. This was the beginning of a conquest over fear.

That was on the Verdun front. On the Somme front we had fourteen days and nights of incessant activity and of unforgettable proofs of God's care. There were many narrow escapes, but I was barely aware of the danger, because I was so conscious of God's presence. "Though they burst at my right hand, they shall not come near me," I said to myself, adapting the seventh verse of the ninety-first Psalm. Of the twenty ambulances belonging to our section and ten belonging to another section that was helping us, twelve were temporarily disabled and five others totally demolished. Yet (with the exception of two) all were empty when hit. Never was a patient wounded en route, although we must have carried over three thousand gassed or wounded men those fourteen days. The fellows often remarked about our good fortune. They knew I thought it was divine protection. The proof was plain to me. "Whatever it is, I want a lot of it!" said one of the Irishmen. "If God is present at all, He is at times like these," I said to him, and he admitted it must be so.

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