On this program Ernest Dutton of Belfast, Northern Ireland, told of his own experience. The program was as follows:

Speaker: Nearly everyone has experienced at some time or another a sense of emptiness and loss upon the departure of a loved one. But grief can be healed when we know God's infinite ever-presence and His boundless love. This is what happened to Ernest Dutton of Belfast, Northern Ireland. We appreciate your willingness to tell this story, Mr. Dutton.

Mr. Dutton: Well, I'm perfectly happy to do it.

When the war started, my son was under twenty, but he volunteered for service with the Royal Air Force. He was assigned to duties as a wireless operator and posted to Coastal Command, which took him out to the West African Coast. After about a year he unexpectedly arrived home. He had a short leave and then left to return to Africa by way of Gibraltar. The large flying boat never reached Gibraltar, and we received word that he was reported "missing."

I was in service myself and away from home; so the initial shock of the news was very great. I had been a student of Christian Science for more than fifteen years, and I had come to know God as divine Life and infinite Love. I knew of God's tender love for His creation, and I prayerfully clung to the thought that no matter what had happened, my son was always in God's care and keeping and therefore safe.

At this time I was greatly comforted and helped by my study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Something Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health was particularly helpful. It deals with the sorrow of Christ Jesus' disciples at the Passover meal just before the Saviour's crucifixion, and it shows the spiritual significance of the bread. This is what we read (p. 33): "Their bread indeed came down from heaven. It was the great truth of spiritual being, healing the sick and casting out error." And further on we read: "They had borne this bread from house to house, breaking (explaining) it to others, and now it comforted themselves." I saw that in my case the "truth of spiritual being" was the truth of God as divine Life and man's relationship to God. And I can assure you that this truth comforted me.

The message finally came from the Air Ministry that they couldn't hold out any further hope. Now I realized I had to prove whether I really understood what I had been studying or whether I merely believed it. I had to see clearly that man is actually spiritual, indestructible, deathless, made in the image and likeness of God. Since God is infinite Life, He must be man's true Life. I realized it isn't possible for the good in a young and promising life to be cut off, since God is Life. Just because I couldn't actually see my son, talk to him, or be with him humanly wouldn't alter his real life one bit.

When these facts were absolutely clear to me and I was certain that in reality there couldn't be any death or any separation, then I was all right. My grief and distress vanished, and they've never returned. I can talk of my son— things that happened when he was a boy or experiences we had together—and there's no feeling of depression, but just the joyous freedom that has come through my study of Christian Science. I might add that the final healing came in just a few weeks; so it wasn't time that healed me. It was the understanding that God is divine Life and knowing man's unbroken relationship to that Life.

Speaker: Yes, you're so right, Mr. Dutton. When we really know man's unbroken relationship to God, we are healed. Thank you again.

Friends, if you face grief and sorrow, cling to the thought that your dear one is now, as always, safe in God's care, since God is divine Love, eternal Life. Nothing can separate either you or your loved one from the love of God, who guards and guides and eternally governs the life of each one of His children. Divine Love is so near, so close and constant, that none of us can ever for an instant be beyond its tender ministrations and comforting warmth. As it says in the well-loved twenty-third Psalm, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

Instead of thinking of ourselves or our loved ones as mortal, physical beings, we can lift our thoughts to the recognition of what man really is. Again and again the Bible makes clear that God is Life, infinite Life, and that man is God's image and likeness. In reality man's life is never confined in a mortal body, never limited to a span of years. His real individuality can never be separated from the divine Spirit which is God.

We can find healing and comfort by gaining a clear understanding of man's eternal identity, his deathless being, as a child of God. A simple example from mathematics may help to illustrate this thought: Can you conceive of a time when a three or a six or a ten did not exist? Erase the figures representing these numbers and still the numbers exist. Three and six and ten are beyond the limitations of time or human conception. You see, in mathematics each number is distinct and individual, necessary and indestructible. Its identity can never be lost.

So it is with the one eternal Mind, God, and His spiritual idea, man. The spiritual idea—which is the real selfhood of your loved ones, of you, and of everyone—can never be erased or lost. Man's real existence is in God, in infinite Love, without beginning or end. Man can never be separated from infinite Life and Love. When we really see this fact and understand it, we will be free from grief and loneliness and doubt.

As Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 69), "Spiritually to understand that there is but one creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scriptures, brings the sweet assurance of no parting, no pain, and of man deathless and perfect and eternal."

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 174 from the Christian Science Hymnal (Like as a mother, God comforteth His children).