Here is an entry from his diary on the 4th March, 1855:  “Sunday.  Had Divine service in camp.  We afterwards met together in a tent.  All present.  Then sat on a regimental board, after which I went to the Guards’ camp for Cay; and we then went, laden with tracts, books and prayers, to the remaining hospitals of the Second Division, where we distributed all we had.  Had service in our hospital tent on my return, and prayed with one of the sick, particularly, who asked me to do so...  I spoke to him of and directed him to ‘look to Jesus’ the Saviour.  Service in the tent again in the evening. ...  Oh, what a happy day this has been!...  I must now conclude, as I must get ready for the trenches.”

[Illustration:  HEDLEY VICARS LEADING THE 97TH.]

On 12th January he wrote:  “I have just returned from a night in the trenches, having come off the sick list yesterday morning.  Last Sunday I was unable to leave my tent, but I had happy communion with Jesus in my solitude, and derived much pleasure from the fourteenth and fifteenth of St. John.  How true is the peace of mind that cleaving to Christ brings to a man!  There is nothing like it in this world.”

Such was Hedley Vicars—­a bright, loving, faithful Christian.  He knew what it was to be without peace; for having got into debt when he was first in the army, and knowing the distress it caused his family at home, his mind was so troubled that he wrote to his mother:  “Oh, what agony I have endured!  What sleepless nights I have passed since the perusal of that letter!  The review of my past life, especially the retrospect of the last two years, has at last quite startled me, and at the same time disgusted me.”  And again:  “Oh, that I had the last two years allotted to me to live over again!”

His mother’s letters stirred him to sorrow for past faults and desires to live a new life.  The sudden death of his fellow-officer, Lieut.  Bindon, made him realise the uncertainty of earthly things.

In November, 1851, whilst at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was awaiting the return of a brother-officer to his room, and idly turning over the leaves of a Bible that was upon the table.  He caught sight of the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin”.  The message went home.  That night he hardly slept.  With the morning came LIGHT AND LIFE.  Like Christian in the Pilgrim’s Progress he looked to the cross, and his burden rolled away.

Feeling keenly his own weakness he bought a large Bible, and placed it open on the table in his sitting-room, determined that an open Bible in the future should be his colours.  “It was to speak for me,” he said, “before I was strong enough to speak for myself.”  The usual result followed.  His friends did not like his “new colours”.  One accused him of “turning Methodist,” and departed; another warned him not to become a hypocrite, and remarked, “Bad as you were, I never thought you would come to this, old fellow!” So for a time he was nearly deserted.