Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/84

78 "What you said in your letter about spiritual pride, I feel to be very applicable to myself at times; but when I am so inclined to forget who and what I am, I endeavour to imagine the sinner standing alone, without a Saviour, and without the Holy Ghost; and the miserable, wretched thought quickly makes me to know and to feel my utter vileness and weakness!

"Give my Christian love to all; and 'Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and has given us everlasting salvation, and goo hope through grace, comfort your heart, and stablish you in every good word and work.'

Early in February he received intelligence of the alarming illness of his Uncle, Colonel Edward Vicars, R.E., at Gibraltar. He was on his way out to the East, intrusted with an important military command, when he was seized with an attack of paralysis, and was landed at Gibraltar, in danger of his life. His wife was not in health to undertake the voyage thither. In this extremity, Hedley, with characteristic unselfishness, at some personal inconvenience, immediately accepted the proposition to go in her place, and left England within a few hours of obtaining leave from his colonel.

From himself we should never have learnt how much of help and comfort, physically and spiritually, he afforded to the suffering invalid; though in every letter he expressed his admiration and respect for the heroic fortitude, and patient, thankful spirit, with which Colonel Vicars bore his mortifying disappointment and heavy affliction.