means to a chaplain or Scripture reader at the front can
hardly be told. This we do know, that the direct assistance of the
commanding officer often makes all the difference between rich success
and comparative failure.

=Christian Work at De Aar and Orange River.=

The rallying-point for the Kimberley Relief Column was, in the first
place, De Aar, the junction where the line to Kimberley connects with
the line to Bloemfontein. In course of time, De Aar became the great
distributing centre of stores for the forces on the way to Kimberley and
Colesberg. Here the Army Service Corps held sway, and enormous were the
stores committed to their care.

But at first, as we have said, De Aar was the rallying place for our
troops, as they moved up from Capetown, and here it was that they got
their first sight of the Boers. As they placed their pickets and
sentries round the camp for the night, a Boer woman was heard to say,
'The rooineks are so afraid that their men will run away, that they have
had to put armed men round the camp to keep the others in.' That was her
way of interpreting the duties of British sentries!

Here it was that Christian work among the troops began in real earnest,
and Sergeant Oates obtained permission from the leaders of the Railway
Mission to use the Carnarvon Hall for Soldiers' Services. The colonel
heard of it and put the service in orders, so that without any
pre-arrangement on the part of the promoters, Sergeant Oates obtained
the attendance of all the Wesleyan soldiers in De Aar at the time.

By-and-by they moved up to the Orange River, 570 miles beyond Capetown.
Here they found that the station-master was a nominal Wesleyan, and he
most kindly gave them the use of his house for religious services.
Still, they were without chaplains, and what, perhaps, was, in their
opinion, quite as bad, without hymn-books! Sergeant Oates found the name
of the Rev. E. Nuttall, of Capetown, on a piece of dirty old paper in
the camp. He did not know anything about him, or even whether he was
still in Capetown, but he felt moved to write to him for those precious
hymn-books. So he read his letter to the lads, and they 'put a prayer
under the seal' and sent it off. The station-master at Belmont, who was
going '_down_,' promised to do what he could for these singing soldiers,
who were without their books, and so even in worse state than preachers
without their sermons; and, strange to say, letter, station-master,