Page:Christian Science War Time Activities.djvu/21

 others, until ten were serving in the army and navy. The War Relief Committee for Great Britain and Ireland originally appointed in 1914 was enlarged in scope in 1918 by the Christian Science Board of Directors, who at that time selected three persons to carry on the larger work planned. Though in no sense under the direction of the American Committee, the work in the United Kingdom was modeled largely after that in the United States and was an extension of the work established in 1915 and the years following at Chatham, Dover, Aldershot, Bedford and Colchester by the united churches of the London district, in Ripon by the churches of Yorkshire, and in Edinburgh and Dublin and Newcastle by the local churches interested.

Even to a group of people so accustomed as are Christian Scientists to seeing the so-called impossible accomplished, the progress of the work of this Committee during the late months of 1917 and the earlier ones of 1918 was astonishing. The rapid and successful building of the organization which cared so satisfactorily for the work in the American and British training camps, and served so remarkably well both the American and the British Expeditionary Forces in France and elsewhere, was the result of genuine and sustained teamwork, a unified effort which was unselfish and generous beyond praise. This support, always extended in a whole-hearted and unquestioning manner by those at home, was undoubtedly the chief explanation of the splendid results obtained. With such backing, success was inevitable.

As individual Christian Scientists, living in far corners of the world, unorganized groups scattered here and there, societies and churches, large and small,