Testimony of Healing October 7, 1991 Issue

In the summer of 1942, my boss in a defense plant asked me if...

John E. Allen

In the summer of 1942, my boss in a defense plant asked me if I wanted continued draft deferment. I said "No." That August I was examined for military service and was rejected as having "pulmonary tuberculosis, far advanced."

After the examination, I sat on a bench in the center of the city, thinking. Relatives of mine had experienced long hospitalization and death with this disease. That was a dismal prospect. I considered Christian Science as an alternative, but with little enthusiasm. My contact with Christian Science had included a brief stint attending a Christian Science Sunday School and later acquaintance with a young woman who was a student of Science.

I called this young woman to explain why I had been rejected from military service and said that I had decided to "try Christian Science." She invited me to dinner at her family's home. Her mother was a Christian Science practitioner, and she was very supportive and comforting. Together they had "pitiful patience with [my] fears." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy states, "The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love."

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