prayed, caring nothing for the nickname of 'lunatic' freely bestowed
throughout the voyage.


=Religious Work on a Troopship.=

The following letter from Colour-Sergeant J.H. Pearce, culled from the
_Methodist Times_, gives us a specimen of the work done by the soldiers
themselves upon these troopships, work that commenced as soon as the
ship left dock, and continued to the end of the voyage. It is dated--

'_At sea, but in the hollow of His hand._

'The first evening we got together all we could find, and decided
to start at once, although still in harbour; so we looked out a
little place under the poop, and decided after a chapter and prayer
to come along again the next evening. But when I went along to see
who would turn up, to my sorrow I found the devil had taken up
position outside our trenches, and we were debarred from entering
by a crowd playing "House." The next day I was rather sick but went
up and found the devil still in possession. Brother Evans was too
sick to go that evening; but Thursday, being better, he and I went
from stem to stern, downstairs and up, searching for a place to
meet for prayer and reading the Word. We were just giving up our
search to go to our quarters and pray about it, when we alighted
upon about eight of our dear brothers on one of the hatchways
waiting. They had sent two of the number to look for Evans and me,
so we got around a port-hole light, and read Romans v., had a few
words, and a word of prayer. Evans read 604, "Soldiers' home
above," and we went home to pray that the Lord would open a way.