From Aldershot to Pretoria | Page 9

was a Roman Catholic, who had been a ringleader of persecution in the barrack room at home. Not far from him lay 'little Jemmie,' wounded severely, whom many a time the Roman Catholic had persecuted in the days gone by. Hour after hour the Roman Catholic soldier lay bleeding there, until at last a strange dizzy sensation came over him which he fancied was death. He looked across to where, in the darkness, he thought he could distinguish 'little Jemmie.' With difficulty he crawled across to him, and bending over the wounded lad, he roused him.
'Jemmie, lad,' he said, 'I have watched you in the barrack room and seen you pray. Jemmie, lad, do you think you could say a prayer for me?'
And Jemmie roused himself with an effort, and, trying hard to get upon his knees, he began to pray. By-and-by the other wounded soldiers heard him, and all who could crawl gathered round, and there, in that far-away nullah, little Jemmie 'said a prayer' for them all. Surely a strange and almost ghastly prayer-meeting that! As they prayed, some one noticed the flicker of a light in the distance. They knew not who it was--Briton or Boer--who moved in the distant darkness. Jemmie, however, heeded it not, but prayed earnestly for deliverance. The light came nearer, and the wounded lads began to call with all their remaining strength for help. And at last it came to them--the light of a British stretcher party--and they were carried to help and deliverance.
'And now,' said the Roman Catholic soldier, who, on his return from the war, told this story to the Rev. T.J. McClelland, 'I know that God will hear the prayer of a good man as well as the prayer of a priest, for he heard little Jemmie's prayer that night.'
And so the Aldershot barrack room prepares the way for the South African veldt, and the example apparently unnoticed bears fruit where least expected.
=The Hymns the Soldier Likes.=
Of all hymn-books Mr. Thomas Atkins likes his 'Sankey' best. He is but a big boy after all, and the hymns of boyhood are his favourites still. You should hear him sing,--
'I'm the child of a King,'
while the dear lad has hardly a copper to call his own! And how he never tires of singing!
But the Scotchmen are exceptions, of course, and when, following mobilisation times, the Cameronian Militia came to Aldershot, they could not put up with Mr. Sankey's collection. Rough, bearded crofters as many of them were,--men who had never been South before,--all these hymns sounded very foreign. 'We canna do wi' them ava,' they cried; 'gie us the Psalms o' Dauvit.' But they set an example to many of their fellows, and the remarkable spectacle was witnessed in more than one barrack room of these stalwart crofters engaged in family prayer.
But it is time we saw our soldiers depart. And first there is the inspection in the barrack square, and it is difficult to recognise in these khaki-clad warriors the men we had known in the barrack room or 'Home.' And then there is the farewell in the evening, and the 'glory-room' or other devotional room is full of those ordered South, and there is the hearty hand-shake and the whispered 'God bless you,' and then all join in the soldiers' good-night song--his watchword all the world over, hymn 494 in Sankey's collection,--
'God be with you till we meet again.'
His life is such a coming and going that he would be unhappy unless you closed every evening meeting with at least one verse, and on these occasions, when no one knows whether it will be in earth or heaven that he will meet his comrade next, it is, of course, impossible to close without it. And so night by night before each regiment takes its departure some one starts 494. By-and-by, as the train steams out of the station, it will be 'Auld Lang Syne,' but these are Christian men, and they are parting from Christian men, and so often with hands clasped and not without tears they sing,--
'God be with you till we meet again, Keep love's banner floating o'er you, Smite death's threatening wave before you, God be with you till we meet again.'
They will not forget it, these soldier lads, and as they pass one another on their long marches across the veldt, unable to do more than shout a greeting to some old friend, it will be 494; and as with rapid tread they advance to charge some almost impregnable defence, they will shout to one another--these Christian soldiers--494, 'God be with you till we meet again!'
=Off to the Front.=
What stirring times those were! What singing in the barrack rooms at night! What excitement in the streets of the town, yes, and what drunkenness too, making