ious
chapters, some forty-five or fifty Wesleyan ministers were appointed
"Officiating Clergymen." These, while still discharging, so far as
circumstances might permit, their ordinary civilian duties, were
formally authorised to minister to the troops residing for a while in
the neighbourhood of their church. Many of the local Anglican clergy
were similarly employed, and supplemented the labours of the
commissioned and acting Anglican chaplains sent out from England.
Their local influence and local knowledge enabled them to render
invaluable service, and great was their zeal in so doing. While the
regular chaplains who came with the troops as a rule went with the
troops, these fixtures in the great King's service were able not only
to make arrangements for religious worship, but for almost every
imaginable kind of ministry for the welfare of the men. They were
often the Army Chaplain's right hand and in some cases his left hand
too. It would be a grievous wrong, therefore to make no reference to
what they attempted for God and the Empire, though it is impossible
here to do more than hurriedly refer to a few typical cases that in
due course were officially reported to me.

[Sidenote: _At Cape Town and Wynberg._]

The very day the Guards landed at Cape Town I was introduced to the
Rev. B. E. Elderkin, who in conjunction with the Congregationalists at
Seapoint made generous provision for the social enjoyment and
spiritual profiting of the troops. I was also that same day taken to
the Wynberg Hospital by the Rev. R. Jenkin, who, on alternate Sundays
with the Presbyterian chaplain, conducted religious services there for
the convalescents, and ministered in many ways to the sick and
wounded, of whom there were sometimes as many as 2000 in actual
residence. Among them Mr Jenkin could not fail to discover many cases
of peculiar interest; and concerning one, a private of the Essex, he
has supplied the following particulars:--

[Sidenote: _Saved from drowning to sink in hospital._]

This lad was badly wounded in the thigh on Sunday, March 11th,
somewhere not far from Paardeberg, but he seems to have got so far
into the Boer lines that our own shells fell around him and our own
stretcher-bearers never reached him; so he lay all night, his wound
undressed, and without one drink of water. Next day a mounted Boer
caught sight of him, got off his horse, gave him a drink, and then
passed on. On Wednesday, in sheer desperation, he