Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/146

Rh be saved, and dying men to be told to 'look to Jesus;' not to speak of the comfort to a poor soldier of having a 'friend in need.' Of this I am sure, that the private soldiers are most grateful for any kindness from an officer, especially when they are sick and in hospital, and they think and talk much of officers who thus visit them, and endeavour to cheer them in their dreary wards. But as God has so ordered it that we should remain here, I desire to give up my own will about it."

There was a tone about his letters during the latter part of the month of September, which impressed us with the idea that his health and spirits were somewhat failing. For some time after the trial of the cholera season was over, he continued to be a constant visitor at the hospitals, where fever cases were still numerous. But doubtless, it was the extent of his exertions during those weeks when he had watched day and night beside the suffering and the dying, with an intensity of interest in their undying souls, which produced too severe a tension of his nervous system; so that, when the call for exertion had passed away, he sunk into a state of extreme physical weakness. This, in its turn, produced a mental depression, which cast its shadow upon his religious experience. No man could be so keenly alive to spiritual joy without an equally exquisite susceptibility to spiritual suffering. "Where you find your greatest pleasures," said an old Divine, "there expect your deepest sorrows." Yet how different are these from "the sorrow of the world which worketh death."

In a letter, written early in October, Hedley Vicars thus expresses himself:

"You seem to know my state by intuition, and never fail to speak comfort to my heart and soul by your letters. What dark and cloudy days are these,