now hoping for the blessed end. She remembered her baptism wellMr. Macleod preached from a boat in the river to the people on the bank, and someone else baptised the candidates. It was nearly twenty years since she had been in the church; she could not move from the house, and should never leave it now. But she had her Gaelic Bible, and could read it easily, with her glasses, and Mr. B. (the colporteur) often paid her a visit, and brought her books. Then the talk took another turn. Where was the visitor from? From Perth or Edinburgh? What! from London? Ah, the brother had been there, thirty years ago, and a wonderful big place it was; but they kent of naebody there now but Mr. Spurgeon, and they had his sermons every month, and sent them on to friends in Ireland. And did I know Mr. Spurgeon; and how old was he; and how many bairns had he; and how many would his Tabernacle hold; and could they all hear him and see him when he preached? Now the communion question came up. Mr. Spurgeon admitted persons to the communion who were not baptised, did he? The answer was "Yes; " hereupon a difference of opinion ensued, the brother, a Presbyterian, highly approving; the sister questioning, "There were sae mony deceivers about now; the church at Tullymet had great need to take care whom they admitted." “Ay, but they mak it no longer the Lord's table, but their ain," objects the brother. And then we went to higher thoughts and future times, when all shall be one, sitting down together at Christ's table, in his kingdom. Prayer followed; and as we said good-bye, the aged believer repeated once and again her favourite text, "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

I had reached the door, when a hospitable thought struck Annie, and she called after me, "We have nae bottle here, but we can gie you a cup o' tea, gin ye will tak it." Then we parted, and the cottage was soon lost to sight among the trees. But in how many such corners of our land, hidden from the eye even of the church, the jewels of our Lord lie, waiting his hour to be set in their own place upon his crown.

I promised Annie that I would tell Mr. Spurgeon, when I saw him, of his readers and friends on the top of that distant Highland brae. I fulfil my promise in this way, that others may share in the thankful impression with which I left Killiecrankie and its neighbourhood, grateful that in secluded glen, no less than in crowded city, the Lord has his witnesses, and the world has its lights.

A

Work in the Army_and_Naby.*

BY W. R. SELWAY.

MONGST women have the most devoted labourers in the fields of Christian usefulness ever been found. Amid the dim haze of the earlier periods of history, when the light of the church but feebly

"Active Service; or, Work among our Soldiers," Hatchards. "Report of National Temperance League, 1873," Tweedie. "Third Annual Statement of Christian Work in the Royal Navy, 1873."

glowed during a long period of outer darkness, may be descried not only women who sought to keep alive their own love and devotion in the retirement of the cloister, shunning the evils of a world they felt too powerless to correct, but here and there one, who by acts of mercy testified her love to the Saviour. But it has been reserved for the present century, and more especially the latter half of it, to show that women, however gentle and refined by nature or by education, surrounded by the luxuries of warm and loving hearts in cheerful and happy homes, can, at the call of duty, when the voice of the Master has been heard bidding them go forth to labour, sacrifice all for him who has for them sacrificed so much; and in order that others may be made partakers of their joy, cheerfully give themselves to toil in unwonted spheres, counting no labour too great, no inconvenience worthy to be named, so that some poor sufferer, either in body or in mind, may find alleviation of bodily pain, and be pointed to the only remedy for diseased souls.

The age has reason to be proud of these noble women, whose names crowd upon the memory, who, finding paths opened up, have not hesitated to tread them. Some have gone to receive their full reward; others, while still toiling, are doubtless gathering up some foretaste of the future, in the happy results of their self-denying devotion, not the least of which would be to see their example followed by many others, for the labourers are still all too few to "combat with sin," and to "labour for the Lord." Every woman would be benefited, and every Christian woman's heart expanded, by making herself acquainted with the heroic devotion and patient labours of Agues Jones amid the suffering poor in the Liverpool Infirmary; of Mrs. Ranyard, in her visits to the haunts of poverty and vice; of Mrs. Meredith, in her arduous labours among the female prisoners of the metropolis; of Mrs. Bartlett, in her warmhearted and zealous endeavours to teach her sisters the way of life; and of many others who are the salt of the earth, and who show that when animated by love to the Saviour, no work is too heavy to be undertaken, and no way too rough to be pursued. Christian zeal has, in numerous instances, wrought out for itself new modes of action, and formed fresh fields of usefulness with the happiest result. Of such efforts, those for the benefit of soldiers and sailors are not the least useful or interesting. It has often been found that woman can work where man would not be tolerated, and that the kind influence of a gentlewoman will frequently touch and subdue the most stubborn nature; this has proyed to have been strikingly the case in the endeavours of Miss Sarah Robinson to reach the minds of soldiers, and of Miss Agnes Weston in her dealings with the sailors in Her Majesty's service. It is possible that if either of these ladies could be called now, without previous warning or training, to take the positions of usefulness they have achieved for themselves, they might shrink from the task, and it would not be matter of surprise if either of them had done so ; but here they stand, examples of what may be accomplished by the patient, plodding zeal which has its groundwork in Christian love.

How has it come to pass that a lady, delicate in all her tastes and surroundings, in imperfect health, having a weak body, which is a perpetual care, should have been enabled to make her way into the

barrack-room, and the military recreation-room, and not only win the rough men to regard her with affection, but have caused the iron rod of military rule to be relaxed, so that her presence and work, once barely tolerated within the barrack-square, are now subjects of commendation from high military authorities? The answer is short, but one very difficult of practical adoption: steady, patient work, which only so far recognises difficulties as incentives to yet more judicious efforts to overcome them.

The work has, of course, grown. Miss Robinson did not spring fully equipped into the field; she found a sphere of usefulness, and did not wait for any great society or extensive organisation to put her in the way, but simply entered it. "1865," she writes in her journal, "will always be a memorable year to me, as that in which I began my real barrack-work-visiting soldiers in their rooms. I had been much occupied in correspondence, lectures, and meetings in different places, but I felt, after all, this did not reach the worst men; so that those who need Christian effort the most are left entirely without it unless we visit them." Her mode of operation appears to have been to disarm the prejudice existing in many quarters against direct religious work from other than the recognised chaplains, to obtain permission to give a lecture to the men on some neutral topic, and then to visit the barrack rooms, asking the soldiers individually to attend, using this opportunity to give a tract, a small book, or what all seem greatly to admire, illuminated text cards, to be put into the letters they send home. In this way access was obtained, the men were pleased with the kind sympathy shown, and gratefully received the words of advice and counsel, while those in hospital were often much cheered by her visits, and comforted by the words of Scripture she was enabled to read to the sufferers. For the encouragement of Sunday-school teachers, the fol lowing extract from her journal should be given, relating to the case of a young man to whom she had been useful. She adds: "After that I read with him every day, and I believe he was really converted, not so much from anything I said, as from the old Sunday-school teaching coming back to his mind. He had been a wild lad, and no doubt his teacher thought all was thrown away on him, but here was the seed springing up after many days. When I talked, he would say, That's just what my teacher told us.' If teachers could only see such cases, they would be encouraged to go on. Nearly every case of good among soldiers I have seen, has been from my words reviving the old impressions received from praying parents and teachers, sometimes from books and sermons." On another occasion, being sent for at the urgent request of a dying man, who was very deaf, she was enabled to speak to the whole ward, through the necessary effort to make him hear. "He was a Roman Catholic, and had been a moral man, but was very ignorant. I never felt so strongly how blessed it was to be able to tell any one that the work has all been done for us, and all we need is to accept salvation as freely as it is offered. I felt thankful it was necessary to speak so loud, for thus all were able to hear. I just read a text here and there, and tried to make it plain, and prayed with him. I did not see him again. About half-an-hour before he died, he asked to have the Bible read, and told the orderly he was not afraid to die now, for all his trust

6

was in what Christ had done." Many months afterwards, a soldier told Miss Robinson that, lying sick in the hospital that night, the words spoken to his dying comrade had been the means of his own

conversion.

It need hardly be said that this work of barrack visiting is not all pleasure, nor without its discouragements; thus, in handing papers round to a number of men, a soldier was observed to snatch one from a comrade, and to light his pipe with it, but Miss Robinson was equal to the occasion. Before leaving the room, she went behind this man, and putting her hand on his shoulder, said, "Friend, I ask fair play for these papers. Read them first, if you use them for pipe-lights afterwards;" whereupon all the men laughed to witness the discomfiture of the culprit. The writer, on asking Miss Robinson if she suffered at all from insult or annoyance from the rudeness of the men, was informed that this very seldom happened, and when it did, almost always from young recruits. On one occasion, as she was descending the stairs, after having conducted a meeting, a raw youth behaved in an insulting manner, thinking probably that he had her at a disadvantage on the stairs, but she instantly seized him by the collar, and gave him the choice of going with her back to the room, and apologising before the men, or of being marched off to the guard-room; he chose the former alternative, and has never since been other than most respectful in his conduct. At Devizes, where she went to work amongst the militia, she was asked to go up a ladder to the sleeping quarters of a number of the men. The sergeant met her, and advised her not to go, as "the men were probably up to some nonsense." She determined, however, to proceed, telling him, "The men should not say I refused to go where I was asked." The sleeping quarters were two large lofts, opening into each other; all the men were there, some cleaning their rifles, most lying on their beds smoking. "When I appeared," she says, "there was a laugh, and some rather uncivil remarks. I said at once, 'Now, my lads, you have asked me up here, and I shall expect you to behave yourselves: I'll stand no nonsense from any man.”” Finding all silent, she began to tell the story of Gadara, and declares she never had a more interested audience, adding, "The episode of the mad pigs always enchants the Wiltshire mind."

The great bane of the soldier's existence is the fatal facility afforded him for obtaining intoxicating drink, and to this cause may doubtless be attributed the fearful fall of many a young soldier; but, it has been Miss Robinson's blessed privilege to be instrumental in reclaiming not a few. One of these she sought out at the request of a widowed 'mother, and found him a wretched object, depressed from drinking, and his face bruised and swollen from fighting. She induced him to meet her at the mission hall, where, after private conversation, she prayed with him; and, going out of the room into the lobby, he exclaimed, "Isn't it too late? isn't it too late? you don't know how bad I am!" "I spoke," she says, "of Christ's uttermost in saving; we cannot get beyond that. Just then a cavalry soldier whom I knew came past, so I stopped him, and said, 'You can tell us something of God's goodness; this comrade thinks he is too far gone for Christ to save him.' The man at once said, 'I was twelve years a drunkard,

after being religiously brought up; He has saved me. Trust him, comrade.' The prodigal was brought back, and although personal intercourse could not be kept up with him, as the regiment was ordered away, yet by correspondence it is known that he has been doing well ever since." The correspondence for soldiers who cannot write, but yet wish to communicate with their friends as well as to soldiers who have been moved to a distance, or abroad, is not one of the least arduous of this devoted lady's self-imposed labours, nor is it one of the least useful; many a truth is in this way carried direct to the heart of the man, and many a waverer strengthened and encouraged by counsel from a warm heart, when all around him is dark, and temptations abound. A letter from home is always most endearing to the absentee, and how much the pleasure is enhanced when it is received from one whose sympathies have been enjoyed, and whose Christian counsel has been a means of blessing, none probably but those who have experienced can realise. Miss Robinson was impelled, by her dire experience of the evils resulting from drinking, to become a total abstainer, and, from seeing that almost all cases of falling away were due to drink, and the men themselves having a strong conviction (which all who have mixed with soldiers have heard) that it is difficult, if not impossible, for a man to be a Christian in the army except as an abstainer, so great are the temptations of the public-houses, and the bad company it involves to a soldier, Miss Robinson not only sets the example, but urges the men to follow the same course, and has found in hundreds of cases that teetotalism has prepared the way for conversion; being at the same time fully aware that abstinence from drinking is but an outward reformation, or, as she expresses it, "It is but laying aside the weight; running the race is quite a different thing." Drunkenness being the cause of by far the larger proportion of the punishments borne by the soldier, it would be well for him if he could be weaned from the habit of drinking, and as this habit conduces to other vices, and induces a great amount of disease, and many premature deaths, it is a question closely affecting the taxpayer, whether the army would not be more efficiently manned at a less cost were the men teetotallers. But these are not the motives which lead Miss Robinson to persuade men to give up drink; she regards teetotalism as a means to an end, an instrumentality to remove or prevent a physical evil, and that the men saved from the temptations besetting them may be the more open to receive impressions from the teaching that may be brought to bear upon them. Hence, the National Temperance League having formed a branch in the army, Miss Robinson threw herself heartily into the work, and it may be interesting to state that regimental temperance societies exist in 140 regiments, having an aggregate number of 7,730 members enrolled as total abstainers. As each of these completes the first year of abstinence from drink, a card of honour is presented to him with some little ceremony of such cards 1,938 have been issued, and very many of them are now to be found neatly framed, hanging at the bedheads in the barrack room. This work, during the year 1872, necessitated Miss Robinson writing no less than 2,200 letters of counsel and advice to soldiers in all parts of the world.

When the National Temperance League decided to try the experiment