Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/62

56 imprecations fell unceasingly on the ear; even in my cabin I could not escape the sound of them. This was the case every Sunday we were on board, excepting that we had a short service in the morning. We had some rough weather, but being a good sailor I did not mind it. I occupied the same cabin with Burton, and we had many serious conversations together on the things belonging to our eternal peace. He always knelt down, morning and evening, in prayer to his God, and I had every reason to value him as a companion.

"I think you were guilty of saying that I should probably forget you within a month after I left Halifax. You never were more mistaken, for I can assure you I never parted with any man for whom I felt a greater regard and esteem than yourself: and I often look back with pleasing recollections on the many days and months I have passed in your family. I cannot express the gratitude I feel towards you, as being the instrument in God's hands of my conversion. May He reward you seven-fold. Oh, what would I not give to have met you in my earlier years; but this perhaps is wrong, for every thing is ordered wisely for us in the counsels of Providence. I do not believe there is a man in the regiment who had plunged deeper in sin and iniquity than he who now writes this against himself. I was in the full career of vice when I arrived in Halifax. It was your preaching, brought home with saving power to my heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, which stopped me, and I am, I trust, at length brought out of darkness to light, and from ignorance of God to a knowledge of his ways. I look upon myself as a monument of God's goodness, in that He allowed me time for repentance, and gave me an instructor and guide — one who was not afraid to confess Christ crucified, and to preach faithfully the great truths of the Gospel. I would thank you, my dear Dr. Twining, from