=A New Feat in Britain's History.=

Week after week this was the programme. It only varied in that the ship
was different, and the men were of different regiments and different
names. Until at last the title of this chapter had become an actual
fact, and Old England, in a sense truer than ever before, was upon the
sea. For it was not _young_ England simply that was there. The fathers
of our land--our greatest and our wisest generals, the most seasoned of
our veterans, were there also. And there was hardly a family at home but
had some representative, or at any rate some near or dear friend upon
the sea.

Never had such a thing as this been _attempted_ before in the history of
the world. Other great expeditions had been fitted out and despatched,
for instance, the great Armada which was beaten and dispersed by our
Hearts of Oak and broken to pieces upon our Scottish rocks. But for
nearly 150,000 men to be dispatched 7,000 miles by sea, and not a man be
lost by shipwreck, is something over which old England may well be
proud, and for which it should bow in hearty thanksgiving to God.

The men these ships were carrying were _new_ men. Some of them certainly
were of the old type--drinking, swearing, impure--though for three
weeks, at any rate, every man of them was perforce a teetotaler, and did
not suffer in consequence! But our army has been recruited in days past
from our Sunday Schools with blessed consequences, and on board every
ship there were men whose first concern was to find a spot where, with
congenial souls, they could meet and pray.

All sorts of places were found. The Rev. E.P. Lowry, for instance,
managed to get the use of the Lunatic Ward, and there the men met and