Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/168

Rh lows can say. Thank God I am very well, and in high spirits, only hoping that Lord Raglan will soon let us try our hand on the Russians."

But this soldier-like letter does not close without an expression of his deeper feelings; "If, even now," he writes, after alluding to the distractions of the scenes around him, "when sin clings to us hour by hour, and the world with its passing interests so often obscures the pardoning cross from our eyes, we yet love the very name of Jesus, how much more in leaven shall our renewed natures rejoice when we behold the Lord of glory, and sit down in the mansions He has prepared for us! Oh, then, precious sister, from whom I may soon be parted here., and never be ashamed to confess Christ crucified! Jesus has bled for us, has redeemed us, has saved us. Oh, let us not cause his once-wounded heart to bleed again for us, but, looking for heavenly aid, let us seek never to grieve Him more."

On landing in the Crimea, his heart was cheered by finding a packet of letters which had been accumulating for three weeks or more. "I had begun to fear before I left the Piræus," he wrote in another letter, "that something was wrong; but you would have felt with me that it was worth while to have had the suspense, if you could have seen me whilst I was reading those precious letters on my arrival here (besides my budget from Terling). My heart and arm are nerved now and I am utterly indifferent to hardships or external trials of any kind.

It is six months since I have been within reach of a house of prayer, or have had the opportunity of receiving the Sacrament; yet never have I enjoyed more frequent or precious communion with my Saviour than I have found in the trenches or in my tent. When, I should like to know, could one find a Saviour more precious than when bullets are falling around like hail?"