Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/82

76 ", Monday Morning.

"— As my last hurried note was but a poor apology for a letter, I must write a few lines to-day. 'They that feared the Lord spake often to one another; and what time more fitting and appropriate in which to express the thoughts of our hearts towards Jesus, than just after the sweet and refreshing enjoyment of his day? For when is the fragrant dew of his Holy Spirit poured so largely on our souls as on those days of 'heaven upon earth?"

"I remember, alas! too well, the time when I dreaded the return of Sunday, and considered it both dull and tedious, but now surely no day is so cheering and delightful, and there is none that passes away so quickly. I recollect, that for several months, the only inward sanctifying proof I could, on examination, bring to assure myself that I had indeed been made an 'heir of Christ,' was this longing desire for the Lord's day.

"You will be surprised to hear that I (a red hot Protestant!) went to the Roman Catholic chapel, yesterday morning. Yes! but it was only as a Protestant officer, in charge of the Roman Catholic soldiers. The Weather was raw, bleak, and damp—fit emblem of the service, which was formal, dreary, and icy cold. I felt very much oppressed, and sick at heart, as I thought of the poor, misguided, deluded men who knelt around; even keeping silence was wearisome to me, for I longed to speak to them of Jesus, and bid them look to the Lamb of God, the Saviour of Sinners. I thought to myself, too, while listening to a mere moral essay, 'and is it to such a man you confess your sins, and forget Jesus, the Sinner's Friend? thus flying to 'broken cisterns, when the living fountain is ever near.' I returned home, feeling quite wretched. It was too late to go to church, but I enjoyed a happy season in my barrack-room; when I did not forget you, and all your friends,