y told me they might as well
whistle to drown the roaring of a whirlwind as attempt "to lead" the
singing of the soldiers.

At these Sunday morning parades the church was usually packed with
khaki in every part. The gallery was filled to overflowing; chairs
were placed in all the aisles on the ground floor; the choir squeezed
themselves within the communion rail; and the choir seats were
occupied by men in khaki, for the most part deplorably travel-stained
and tattered. Soldiers sat on the pulpit stairs; and into the very
pulpit khaki intruded, for I was there and of course in uniform. It
was a most impressive sight, this coming together into the House of
God of comrades in arms fresh from many a hard fought conflict and
toilsome march.

At one of these services a sergeant of the 12th Lancers was present;
and his was just a typical case. It was at the battle of Magersfontein
we had last met. On that memorable morning he and his troop rode past
me to the fight; we grasped hands, whispered one to the other
"494"[1]; and then parted to meet months after, unharmed amid all
peril, in our Father's House in Bloemfontein. The thrill of such a
meeting, which represents cases of that kind by the score, no one can
fully understand till it becomes inwoven in his own experience. So we
met, and remembering the way our God had led us, we sang as few men
could

"Praise ye the Lord! 'tis good to raise
Your hearts and voices in His praise!"

How good, supremely good, I have no words to tell!

[Footnote 1: "God be with you till we meet again."--_Sacred Songs and
Solos_, No. 494.]

On that Easter afternoon there came a sudden summons to conduct
another soldier's funeral. For a full hour and a half I watched and
waited beyond the appointed time, while the digging of a shallow grave
in difficult ground was being laboriously completed; and then in the
name of Him who is the "Resurrection and the Life," we laid our
soldier-brother in his lowly resting place, enwrapped only in his
soldier-blanket. Meanwhile, in accordance with a touching Anglican
custom, there came into the cemetery a long procession of choir boys
and children singing Easter hymns, joining in Easter liturgies, and
then proceeding to lay on the new made graves an offering of Easter
flowers.

At the Easter evening service I was surprised to see in the Wesleyan
church another dense mass of khaki. Every man had been required to
procure a separate perso