Page:Christian Science War Time Activities.djvu/149

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CAMP WELFARE COMMITTEE

boys, each from a different part of the country, came up to the machine and asked us to read the lesson. We went out in the shade in a quiet spot and ten of us had a fine service. We shall be organized by next Sunday, I'm sure.”

Shortly after the same Worker wrote:

“Our services at 9:30 a.m. Sunday are splendid and the boys are delighted. I hear them talking about ‘our services.’ We have a room in the Y. M. C. A. hut but while the weather is so warm, we are meeting out of doors. One boy wrote home that we had the finest lighted and best ventilated church in the world.”

Before a room was secured for their use about seventeen Christian Scientists gathered in the National Cemetery at historic Gettysburg and went over the lesson. Later these men of the Tank Corps held a regular service in their own room, which a visitor described as very impressive and earnest.

The meetings in camps were held in various places: Y. M. C. A. huts, Jewish Welfare buildings, camp theaters, gymnasium halls, mess halls, tents and often under the most unusual conditions.

In the larger camps and training stations where the men stayed sometimes for several months, a simple organization was usually formed. In one camp, when the Worker called the men together, they chose, without any preparation save silent prayer for guidance, a board of directors consisting of a major, a captain, a lieutenant, a sergeant and a private. This board each month chose two readers to serve for the ensuing monthly period, the First Reader a commissioned officer and the Second Reader an enlisted man. The Worker was then given the names of the new readers, the Bible and the textbook were placed

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