ENGLAND'S ANSWER TO THE CALL
had found little to mitigate the rigors of military life, wrote shortly after the opening:
“Fortunately a Christian Science War Relief Room has been opened here quite recently, just outside the Army Service Corps offices, as luck would have it, and I go over there of an evening and my friends come with me, including M. and several others who love to sit by the warm fires. . . . Certainly the fires and cozy carpeted floors of these Christian Science Rooms, to say nothing of the loving help of the ladies in charge, have been a Godsend to me and poured oil on the troubled waters. These places are all over the shop now.”
The county Committee for Berkshire says in one of its reports:
“There have been many expressions of gratitude for these Rooms, for the quiet and comfort found there. Many men come regularly and new ones are constantly finding their way here. A man came in to write a letter one evening, and thanked the Worker before he left, saying he had not spent such a comfortable evening in Reading before, and added, ‘We could not do without these places.’ An army chaplain came in to write some letters and said it was very kind of us to have such nice places for the men, and he hoped they were appreciated. It is interesting to see the help the men get, and how they gradually begin to get freer. One evening a man, suffering great pain, came in and had a talk with the Worker. A passage from Science and Health was given to him to study and the next day he came to say he had been healed. Another man who could hardly keep his foot still on account of pain caused by a sword wound, came to the Room. The next time he appeared he said he had had no pain since the day he visited the War Relief Room.”
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