THE LATE CAPTAIN VICARS. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." "In thee the fatherless findeth mercy." LIFE in many a varied aspect characterized an English port. Ships of every description lay idly at anchor, while their colours rose and fell with the breeze; others, as though envious of such a lot, were making the land; while not a few, with the trim yet troubled exterior which distinguishes an "outward bound" vessel, were evidently on the eve of starting. Such was the position of a noble transport. Great seemed the strain upon her cable, as though she were anxious to break the link which bound her to the shore; continuous, the stream of passengers which flooded her deck; self-important, the faces of the hurrying seamen; authoritative, the voice of command which rose above every sound. But if the memory of Nelson was cherished there, there were hearts which beat faster at the name of Wellington. In all the pride of military attire, which contrasted well with the more sober dress of the British sailor, stood the 97th regiment. Bravely did the stern brow and fearless eye conceal the grief within; and though the thought of home and country must be ever fresh; though the possibility of an endless exile could not but be apparent-England was not blamed for asking too much, and the foreign shores of West Indian climes seemed less distant through the glass of duty. The last words, the last prayer, of a widowed mother were, methought, still echoing in the heart of one in that corps. Over his head but seventeen summers had passed, and now he must bid farewell to the hearth where the glowing embers of a mother's love must ever associate it with all that is pure and holy. Fain would she ever be his guardian angel; gladly would she still be at hand to counsel, to warn; but it must not be. Their course must now be separate, yet may their goal be one; their pursuits must now be different, yet may their aim be one; absent from each other in body, they may be yet present in spirit, and the many-linked invisible chain unite them in the "communion of saints." Many are the tears which accompany that parting; yet is there "a bow in the cloud," and the Sun of Righteousness, entering the tear-drops as they silently fall, spreads over the now illumined grief-cloud the brilliant arch stamped with the impress of heaven-“ Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me." Christian mothers! ye whose words of love still breathe the Spirit of Christ, and whose daily life is a living epistle for the Saviour; and ye, whose glorified spirits have put off mortality and entered into life-eternity alone will unfold the priceless value of your labours! How numerous the imitators of "the unfeigned faith" that was in thee Eunice, and in thee Monica ! Surely there was a secret brightness which hovered around that departing ship; almost might the ear of faith, amid the "distant harping round the eternal throne," have heard the strings tuned for a salvation chorus; verily, could angels have predicted the future, there would have been an anticipative note in the redemption song, for ere long there would be joy in heaven over a repenting sinner. And so the cable was loosed, the vessel stood out to sea, and the mother and son had parted. "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed." Five years had now sped away and the youth had become a man. Removed at once from the restraints of home and the love of friends, he had found nothing in a foreign land to supply their place. His Bible, that last gift of his widowed mother, had been mislaid and lost. Far was that distant shore from fostering the precious seed; it could not thrive in that ungenial climate. Unhealthy as it was to the outer man, the inner found it blighting, withering. It came in contact with unholy influences; it was surrounded by unhallowed associations; it had to grapple with the dictates of the world, and in a measure drank into its spirit; thought still recurred to his mother, but the pleaded prayer, the cherished hope, which she must ever feel for him, seemed forgotten; and that sweet name was associated rather with the guardian of childhood than the sacred task of "holding the little hands in prayer." Were five years more to pass without an answer to her prayer? "At the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry!" The wind moaned fitfully in its course over the cotton plantations, or swept in stronger gusts through the leaves of the stately timber trees, as he sought the room of a brother officer. Not finding him within, he resolved to await his return. But why that start? Why' that astonished and perplexed look? What can have so unnerved him as to make the strong man tremble, and falter out an anxious inquiry? His hand is on the best of books; his eyes are riveted upon the glowing contents. Not by mere chance, not by a lucky The coincidence, have words so striking first arrested him. oft-pleaded prayer of an absent mother had come up as a memorial before God; a glance at the word of life calls up the remembrance of old days-of an open Bible-a kneeling mother -a lisping child-an agonizing prayer; quick and powerful is "the sword of the Spirit;" bitter his thoughts of the past; anxious his glance at the future. The prayer is heard. O could the mother know it! "At the end it shall speak." "When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." But one day The christian soldier was alone in his tent. had passed since that eventful eve from which he might date his second birth, yet was it sufficient to verify the truth, "The servant is not greater than his Lord." Opposition poured in upon him like a flood; the firm friends of yesterday were but as the treacherous Judas; hypocrisy was laid to his charge; he was scouted as "a saint" and a madman. But the soldier had "handled the plough;" he had already counted the cost, and their utmost malice seemed but the dash of the angry wave upon the senseless rock. Though, like Elijah, he felt as a solitary witness for Christ, he could yet discern the chariots and horses of fire in the far off hills. Alone he was, yet not alone; "the cross was indeed his, but it led to "the crown;" the cloud overshadowed him, but the bow yet spanned it, and bright letters glowed therefrom; "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Nay, so far were the shafts of ridicule from taking effect, that he gloried in the imputed name, but felt with another his unworthiness to bear it. "A saint! Oh would that I could claim "A saint! Oh, scorner, give some sign, And warmer thanks thou shalt command, And did any words of Scripture gleam with a peculiarly brilliant lustre ?—they were those which had at first struck him, and had since been ever in his mind; gracious in their unbounded freeness, generous in their inexhaustible fulness, precious beyond expression, because to him not expecting, not deserving: "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin." Nor was the resolution which accompanied them frail and fleeting as the morning cloud; it became a ruling principle, Oh, mother! here is the seed "found after many days;" faint not, neither be weary; "blessed are they that sow beside all waters." "At the end it shall speak." It was the autumn of the year 1854, and the foot of the christian soldier trod the land of Greece. Yet neither the beauty of the vine-clad valley, nor the grandeur of the pinecovered mountain, were protection against the ravages of disease. Cholera and fever, hand in hand, swept on with pitiless force, and decimated the regiment. The dawn of the thirtieth day gilded the crests of one hundred and twenty graves. But death did not claim them as his own before they had been told of One who had met and vanquished him. Day and night, as they slowly succeeded each other, marking the transition of many a soul, found him at the post of duty and the place of choice. The dismal hospital, lined with beds, tenanted by ghastly forms of suffering and decay, failed to affright the christian soldier. His visits, like those of "ministering spirits," were not the result of calculation or of impulse. In each suffering frame he beheld a needy brother, and burned to wait upon the Saviour in the person of a disciple. Not Andrew in search of his brother Simon; not Philip in quest of Nathanael, ever evinced greater zeal in bringing the loved one to Christ, than he in bidding the dying soldier look up to the crucified Son of man. Who will question the love which prompted the request? "O pray for my poor regiment, that they may come to Jesus and have life!" Who will doubt the sincerity of his purpose, or the simplicity of his faith, when, from amid the complicated horrors of disease and death, words breathing a holy, Christ-like sincerity found their way to the absent ones at home. "Should I never write again, remember, my only hope, my only confidence, my only assurance, is the cross of Jesus Christ my Saviour; in the certainty that 'His blood cleanseth from all sin,'-words as precious to me now as when first made to my soul 'the power of God and the wisdom of Go" Who can fail to perceive that the very spirit of his words betrays a hope too sure, a love too pure for earth; that beams from on high gladdened his onward course; and that, though THE ENGLISH MONTHLY TRACT SOCIETY, 27, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON, knowing but in part, he rejoiced in the prospect of an intimacy whose duration would be eternal, whose perfection would be complete? Nor did "the bed, where parting life was laid,” alone command the presence of the christian soldier. The eye no longer flashes with happy consciousness; the ear can bear unmoved the din and clash of discord; the life-blood has ceased to flow, the limbs to move, the pulse to beat; all is in fearful stillness; all in pitiable helplessness; all in alarming prostration; the silver cord is loosed; the golden bowl is broken; " man goeth to his long home." Silently and with measured tread a troop of mourners quit the hospital. comrade is to be committed to the dust, and they are to perform the weary task. Yet walks there one by that bier who deems it a privilege to be so engaged, while considering his duty to be but half performed so long as the dust has not returned to the earth as it was. Joy, despite the grief which a newly-snapped link in the chain of affection must call forth, is the uppermost feeling in the soldier's breast. A calm, A too serene for earth, pervades his spirit; and as he follows to the grave all that is left of one whose hour of sickness had been cheered by the presence of the Saviour, and to whom he had been permitted to unfold the glories of redemption, he cannot but indulge a happy, hopeful confidence that the labourer at the eleventh hour has been accepted and received into paradise. The grave is yet open, and as the falling earth conceals the soldier and the friend, he reminds his comrades, in stirring tones, of a change which must pass upon them all, and bids all and each apply the warning, "Prepare to meet thy God." Thou art my battle-axe and weapons of war." The month of November saw the 97th regiment quartered in the Crimea. The fresh climate, and more stirring scenes, were new to the christian soldier; yet, unlike those who depend for enjoyment upon the chance pleasures and exciting events of life, and who exist from day to day, sustained by the stimulus of a past and the anticipation of a future delight, he felt how true was the sentiment of a heathen poet, when he said, that "the traveller experiences a change of sky but not of mind." He required not the constant intervention of variety to make life supportable, or to relieve it of monotony. His feelings knew not the ebb and flow consequent upon a worldly tide. Reader, would you know their source? In that pure perennial stream which, reflecting the beams of the Sun of |