Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/36

30 Closing the book, he said, “If this be true for me, henceforth I will live, by the grace of God, as a man should live who has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ."

That night he scarcely slept pondering in his heart whether it were presumptuous or not to claim an interest in those words. During those wakeful hours, he was watched, we cannot doubt, with deep and loving interest, by One who never slumbereth nor sleepeth; and it was said of him in heaven, "Behold, he prayeth."

In answer to those prayers, he was enabled to believe, as he arose in the morning, that the message of peace was "true for him" — "a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation." “The past," he said, “then, is blotted out. What I have to do is, to go forward. I cannot return to the sins from which my Saviour has cleansed me with His own blood."

An impetus was now given in a new direction, of sufficient power to last till the race was run—until he could say with the Apostle Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Thenceforth he lived. And the life he now lived in the flesh, he lived by the faith of the Son of God, of whom he delighted to say, with realizing faith and adoring gratitude, "He loved me, and gave himself for me."

On the morning which succeeded that memorable night, he bought a large Bible, and placed it open on the table in his sitting-room, determining that "an open Bible" for the future should be "his colours." “It was to speak for me," he said, "before I was strong enough to speak for myself." His friends came as usual to his rooms, and did not altogether fancy the new colours. One remarked that he had “turned Methodist," and, with a shrug, retreated. Another ventured on the bolder measure of warning him not to become a hypocrite: "Bad as you were