s duty. He makes them the centre of his
work, for at no other time can he get so many of his men around him; and
standing there at the drumhead, he gives God's message with all the
power he can command.

But, after all, it is in quieter, homelier work that he succeeds the
best. Mr. Burgess, for instance, tells us how he began his open-air
work. He went over to the Royal Scots camp, and, as soon as the band had
finished playing, stepped into the ring. It might have been a shell that
had dropped into that ring by the speed with which all the soldiers
cleared away from it! and the preacher, who had hoped he could hold the
crowd which the band had gathered, was woefully disappointed. However,
he commenced to sing,--

'Hold the fort,'

and he had not long to hold it by himself. Before he had finished the
hymn other soldiers had gathered courage, and he had a crowd of two or
three hundred round him, and at the close of the service there were many
earnest requests to come again.

Thus night by night, in the tent and in the open air, Christ was
preached. Perhaps, however, the most blessed of all the services were
the meetings of Christian soldiers upon the veldt. Here and there among
Mr. Burgess's letters one chances on such passages as this:--

'At 7.30 p.m. eight of us went a little distance from the tents
into the veldt, and read the fifteenth chapter of St. John's
Gospel together, and knelt down on the grass, and had a happy time
in prayer. The lads got back to their tents in time for the first
post, when the roll is called.'

Such records as these give us a glimpse of the Christian soldier's life
at once beautiful and pathetic. Such intercourse must have been of the
sweetest character; and, far away from home and friends, they drew very
near to God.

For weeks from this time Mr. Burgess's letters are full of stories of
conversion. Now a corporal that he chats with at the close of a hard
day's work, now the trumpeter of the regiment, now several together at
the close of an open-air service. Thus all workers rejoiced together in
ever continued success, and the greatest joy of all--the joy of
harvest--was theirs.

But the time of inactivity was over. For weeks reinforcements had been
gathering, and the chaplains' work had covered a larger area. It was now
time to strike their tents and march. But this unfortunate column was
unfortunate still. With the memory of the disaster to the Northu