CHRISTIAN SCIENCE IN THE WAR
“A supply sergeant of a company which was to leave for France in a few days came to one of our Camp Welfare Workers in much distress, because he had found that the Red Cross supplies, distributed through the Camp Quartermaster, had run short and he was in pressing need of a large number of sweaters and socks. Our Worker telephoned to the Comforts Forwarding Committee (Christian Scientists), Boston, and the next day a huge box containing the required fifty sweaters and seventy-five pairs of socks arrived, and was delivered, to the great amazement of the supply sergeant. Needless to say he was very grateful. All the men who have received them speak of the superior quality and softness of the ‘Christian Science socks.’ ”
This was an activity in which many of the Committees participated, particularly in those cities near which such camps were located. Thus the Comforts Forwarding Rooms throughout the country formed a chain of supply houses, or “happiness factories,” as one newspaper called them. The combined material history of what those Committees accomplished will never be written, but the spirit of the work, the quickened love, and the softened, sweetened thought when the note of appreciation came from the recipients, have made their ineffaceable imprint upon the consciousness of every worker. If each member of a Committee has thus profited by the experience, who can estimate its value to the entire Christian Science organization in the community, and therefore to the Christian Science cause as a whole?
One day sixty-five boys were fitted out by a local Committee. We quote from the report:
“One of the boys, whose father is a well-known ex-minister and whose mother is a prominent club woman here, made this statement to his parents: ‘Father, you and mother could buy
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