n in the evening. ... Oh, what a
happy day this has been!... I must now conclude, as I must get ready
for the trenches."

[Illustration: HEDLEY VICARS LEADING THE 97TH.]

On 12th January he wrote: "I have just returned from a night in the
trenches, having come off the sick list yesterday morning. Last Sunday
I was unable to leave my tent, but I had happy communion with Jesus
in my solitude, and derived much pleasure from the fourteenth and
fifteenth of St. John. How true is the peace of mind that cleaving to
Christ brings to a man! There is nothing like it in this world."

Such was Hedley Vicars--a bright, loving, faithful Christian. He knew
what it was to be without peace; for having got into debt when he was
first in the army, and knowing the distress it caused his family at
home, his mind was so troubled that he wrote to his mother: "Oh, what
agony I have endured! What sleepless nights I have passed since the
perusal of that letter! The review of my past life, especially the
retrospect of the last two years, has at last quite startled me, and
at the same time disgusted me." And again: "Oh, that I had the last
two years allotted to me to live over again!"

His mother's letters stirred him to sorrow for past faults and desires
to live a new life. The sudden death of his fellow-officer, Lieut.
Bindon, made him realise the uncertainty of earthly things.

In November, 1851, whilst at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was awaiting the
return of a brother-officer to his room, and idly turning over the
leaves of a Bible that was upon the table. He caught sight of the
words, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin".
The message went home. That night he hardly slept. With the morning
came LIGHT AND LIFE. Like Christian in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ he
looked to the cross, and his burden rolled away.

Feeling keenly his own weakness he bought a large Bible, and placed it
open on the table in his sitting-room, determined that an open Bible
in the future should be his colours. "It was to speak for me," he
said, "before I was strong enough to speak for myself." The usual
result followed. His friends did not like his "new colours". One
accused him of "turning Methodist," and departed; another warned him
not to become a hypocrite, and remarked, "Bad as you were, I never
thought you would come to this, old fellow!" So for a time he was
nearly deserted.

But he had got that which was better than any ordinary friendsh