Page:Christian Science War Time Activities.djvu/107

 was a musician, these children of the woods learned to love our hymns and to sing them with great feeling.

Virtually every state in the Union maintained a War Relief Committee which carried on its functions in a thoroughly satisfactory manner and the foregoing states have been singled out for special mention only because the work within their borders was somewhat out of the ordinary.

In this general survey, mention may properly be made of hospital work done for soldiers and sailors at points outside of the larger camps and cantonments, sometimes by regular Workers and oftentimes by volunteers. As indicative of the method employed by the men and women who participated in this activity, the following letter, written by one of them in December of 1918, is cited.

“Since my last report many good things have happened. Perhaps the most prominent in my thought is the following: After inoculation with serums a student officer was stricken with sickness. He was mentally deranged, paralyzed in hands and feet, totally blind in one eye and nearly so in the other, and had set the day to die. A friend had recommended Christian Science treatment and had written to me about him. The letter was received after the patient had been in the hospital two days. He was in a ward for the insane. The doctor did not want me to see him but finally consented.

“Our friend listened to what I had to say but was so anxious to have some letters written to settle insurance and business matters, and to make arrangements for his burial, that the best thing I knew to do was to satisfy him. In three days he was going to die and he wanted his worldly affairs attended to. Soon after I began to write for him he was relieved to such an extent that I told him I would not write another line. Reasons for this action were given to which he readily assented. I told him that he had sent for me because I had