Speaker: How deeply encouraging it is to realize that God has given man dominion over the physical difficulties that seem to plague mankind ! The experience of our guest, Col. Wayne L. Bart, of Fairfax, Virginia, is a fine illustration of this. A crippling injury he'd sustained to his arm was completely healed through his reliance on God's power alone.

And you received this injury to your arm during the Second World War, isn't that right, Colonel Bart?

Colonel Bart: Yes, that's right. It happened in Germany. A shell hit in front of my jeep, and a large fragment went through my right arm. It took away a piece of bone, leaving just a sliver between the upper and lower portions.

I was cared for there for a few days and then taken to a hospital in England. The doctors there said I'd never have the full use of my right arm. In fact, they said I would undoubtedly be retired from the Army for physical disability. Certainly I would never be able to raise my arm higher than my right shoulder, and I might just as well get used to being left-handed.

After about a month in England, I was sent back to the United States. All they did was just change the cast on my arm. When I got out of the hospital, I went to West Point and arranged to get a job there teaching mathematics. I was on temporary duty at West Point, and I had to report back for examinations periodically, oh, I think about every six months. There was no medication or anything of that sort. They would just take X rays.

On one occasion the doctors wanted to put a plate in my arm, because, they said, it was very unlikely the bone would ever be strong enough to support the arm. I even went before a Retirement Board at one time. But I told them I had no desire to retire. I wanted to be active and stay in the Army.

Well, after I really got settled at West Point, I got the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy and began to study earnestly. You see, I wasn't an active Christian Scientist at this time, although I'd attended a Christian Science Sunday School for several years when I was a young boy. When I was eighteen, I enlisted in the Army. There were social drinking, smoking, and the use of profanity, and I began to drift away from the earnest study and application of the truths I'd learned in Sunday School.

Later I got an appointment to West Point and graduated from there during the middle of the war. At that time I made the excuse that I was busy fighting a war and didn't have the opportunity to study.

But all this time I still knew Christian Science had given me the correct explanation of God, and I always had in the back of my thinking that some day, when the opportunity presented itself, I was going to be an earnest student of Christian Science again. It was this experience with my arm that made me see that I had to be a sincere and consistent student.

It wasn't a quick healing, but it was a very fruitful and helpful experience. One morning, while I was studying, I came across this passage from Science and Health. It's where Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 162), "Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies." And she goes on to say, "It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness."

I can remember as I read that passage I just sort of thrilled that this was indeed what Christian Science was doing for me—invigorating and purifying me, uplifting and elevating my thought to see God, myself, and my fellow men as they really are.

It was just like a light dawning in my consciousness. I realized that a transformation was taking place, not only in my thinking, but in my experience. I knew the report that the condition just couldn't be completely healed had no basis in divine Truth. I felt confident, as I continued the study, that the healing was taking place, and it certainly was. Shortly after this, the doctors were amazed to find that the bone was beginning to fill in between the upper and lower portions where it had been shot away. The last X rays showed the bone had completely filled in.

It was approximately six months from the time I began really to study Christian Science until the complete healing. And by this time the smoking, the drinking, and the use of profanity were all overcome too.

I think probably the outstanding feature of it all was that, prior to this experience, I felt I was just sort of drifting and rather useless—not quite sure what my purpose in life was—whereas after I began to study earnestly everything changed. I realized I had an opportunity to see myself and my fellow men in the true light. This not only contributed to my own well-being, but it has given me an opportunity to be of much greater service in my Army career.

Speaker: Thank you, Colonel Bart. That was a fine experience. And it's only natural that your prayerful study, which led to the physical healing, should bring about a change in character, giving you a higher sense of purpose.

This is so, friends, because the divine power that heals the human mind of its false beliefs also heals the human body of its ills. Now let me go into that a little more, because the better we understand this divine power—its ever-presence and ever-availability—the better we'll know how to let it govern our human experience harmoniously.

Christ Jesus knew how important it is to gain an uplifted state of thought, a consciousness that trusts God's power alone to meet every need of the human mind and body. He said, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." And Paul later confirmed this teaching of the Master when he said, "To be spiritually minded is life and peace."

Christian Science shows us how to gain this uplifted state of thought, this singleness of purpose and spiritual-mindedness, which brings life and peace into our experience. This religion teaches that God is infinite Mind, the only Mind; that God is Spirit, infinite Truth, eternal Life. It accepts the Scriptural declaration that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Well, then, it follows that man's real substance as the expression of God must be sound, spiritual, eternal, indestructible. It certainly cannot be mortal, material, subject to loss, discord, and decay. The human mind and the human body cannot be the true identity of man, if man is the son of God.

Our understanding of this leads to healing, as Mrs. Eddy points out in Science and Health (p. 216), "If man is governed by the law of divine Mind, his body is in submission to everlasting Life and Truth and Love." And she continues on the same page, "Give up your material belief of mind in matter, and have but one Mind, even God; for this Mind forms its own likeness."

Now this was exactly what Colonel Bart was discovering when he returned to the study of the Bible and of Science and Health. His thinking was purified and uplifted as he began to grasp the fundamental truths of God and of man's spiritual identity. This great awakening, he told us, was like a light dawning in his consciousness. He felt the transformation taking place not only in his thinking, but also in his physical condition.

And this is what always happens, friends, when we fill our thoughts with what is true of God and man. In other words, when the human mind gives up its false beliefs about the body, it yields to the divine Mind, which governs every situation harmoniously. It doesn't matter whether the need is for the healing of disease, renewal of a bone, restoration of character, the need will be met, as Mrs. Eddy assures us in Science and Health in these words (p. 387): "The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering."

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 70 from the Christian Science Hymnal (God giveth light to all).