Page:Christian Science War Time Activities.djvu/186

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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE IN THE WAR

Worker the desire that services be reestablished. They had twice before been held at the prison but had been allowed to lapse. It was considered, however, wiser that the demonstration of services be made within the prison. This was done. Within three weeks a list of thirty names of men who desired to attend Christian Science services was given to the Worker. A large percentage of the men who expressed this desire, and who further became interested, have since been discharged from the prison. The attendance at each service was always excellent and steadily increased, followed by numerous requests for the textbook, for literature and for talks with the Worker. Services were held in the prison Y. M. C. A. building. From the first, the work of the Christian Science War Relief Committee was generously recognized at this station, and cordial cooperation was extended by the naval authorities in every unit. Perhaps no finer recognition of Christian Science could have been accorded than that made by the prisoners themselves, and upon their own initiative, when the Worker was made an Honorary Member of the Mutual Welfare League and presented with the insignia. The League is a branch of the association for self-government formed by Thomas Mott Osborne in Auburn and Sing Sing prisons. The Christian Science work was considered of such value by the Commanding Officer of the prison that it was his desire, upon the resignation of the pioneer Worker, that a resident Worker be established at the prison, to live and be associated at all times with the prisoners. The Committee appointed a man for this position.

“Monday night I came into the prison as a prisoner and received my clothes (gray stripes),” he writes. “I

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