Christian Science came to me during the years of the last war, 1914—1918, and on looking back I realize with sincere gratitude how much I have benefited since then. As a child I was never strong, and all my school days were handicapped by persistent disability. Although complete physical healing has been slow, I realize that all the while my thought has been undergoing a transformation, and deeply rooted beliefs in matter and material law have been yielding to a knowledge of God's law.

Recently, I have had the opportunity of proving the teachings of Christian Science; and in the autumn of 1940 I had an experience for which I am deeply grateful, and which may be helpful and encouraging to others.

Like all students of Christian Science during the period of constant air raids over London, I had worked earnestly to realize God's omnipresence and His universally protecting power. In spite of protests from friends, my sister and I ceased after a while to go out to the shelter when the siren sounded, but remained in our flat on the top floor, where we felt more secure and were free to work mentally and voice the truth aloud.

Mrs. Eddy, in answering a question as to how we can defend our heritage, says on pages 2 and 3 of "Pulpit and Press": "By intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life." I cannot say that I was never afraid during the raids, but the thought was always with me that we are "pinnacled in Life." There are two lines of Hymn No. 267 in the Christian Science Hymnal which run,

and with the whistle of each falling bomb I paraphrased these lines in my own thought thus: "Hear baseless evil fall and know that God is there." Then in quieter moments I tried to realize the truth of this. After a few weeks we moved a little out of town to stay with a sister and her family who are also students of Christian Science, and here our weeks of work and prayer were put to the test and proved.

In the small hours of one morning, after several nights of air raids in the vicinity, my sister's house received a direct hit from a bomb. It exploded in the dining room, bringing down two stories above. There were ten of us sleeping in our rooms in different parts of the house. No one was killed, and only one, the children's nurse, was at all seriously injured. On the first floor, three out of five people fell down a story. I was up on the second floor, and as I groped in the darkness and debris I heard one of the children calling frantically below. She had fallen in her bed and was pinned under a beam. The bed was smashed to pieces, but the child was comparatively unhurt. The floor of my room held, but there were no landings below me, so I was unable to get at anybody, and I found the sister who had been with me had completely disappeared. For a few moments a great terror gripped me, but lines from a hymn that had been much in my thought came again to help me. They were (Hymn No. 77):

I remember saying over and over again, "God at my right hand," and trying to realize it was true. I put out my hand and touched a coat. This I pulled around me. In the pocket was a small torch; then, just at hand, I found my sister's shoes and her siren suit, and when I discovered where she had fallen I was able to throw them down to her. Even her little dog was safe; I found him at the firmest end of the room under the dressing table. Certainly God, good, was at my right hand, and in the darkness I felt a great thankfulness as I heard the rescue party below working to help everyone out. They reached me last by a long ladder at the window. The nurse, who is now well, was taken to a hospital, and the rest of us were taken in by neighbors.

On all hands the whole experience was regarded as a miracle, but we know it to be the natural outcome of acknowledging, with some measure of understanding, the all-presence and all-power of God.

This testimony would not be complete without an expression of deep gratitude to the practitioner who helped us to overcome the effects of shock, severe neuralgia, and colds, and enabled my sister and me to return to our flat and to take up our normal duties again.

I am profoundly grateful for the discovery of the wonderful, demonstrable truth which Mary Baker Eddy has given to the world in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." I am also grateful for the whole organization, and especially for class instruction and association meetings, which help us to develop our understanding of this priceless and infinite subject. My desire is to bring more and more of it into my daily living.—(Miss) Mildred Single, London, England.