“‘I thought,’ said the curate, ’that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all.’  ’I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night,’ said the landlady, ’very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it.’  ‘Are you sure of it,’ replied the curate.  ‘A soldier, an’ please your reverence,’ said I, ’prays as often (of his own accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king and for his own life, and for his honor too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world.’” “’Twas well said of thee, Trim,” said my uncle Toby. “‘But when a soldier,’ said I, ‘an’ please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the trenches up to his knees in cold water, or engaged,’ said I, ’for months together in long and dangerous marches; harassed, perhaps, in his rear to-day; harassing others to-morrow; detached here; countermanded there; resting this night upon his arms; beat up in his shirt the next; benumbed in his joints; perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on, he must say his prayers how and when he can, I believe,’ said I, for I was piqued,” quoth the corporal, “for the reputation of the army.  ’I believe, an’t please your reverence,’ said I, ’that when a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson, though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.’” “Thou shouldst not have said that, Trim,” said my uncle Toby, “for God only knows who is a hypocrite and who is not.  At the great and general review of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then), it will be seen who has done their duties in this world and who has not; and we shall be advanced, Trim, accordingly.”  “I hope we shall,” said Trim.  “It is in the Scripture,” said my uncle Toby, “and I will show it thee to-morrow.  In the meantime, we may depend upon it, Trim, for our comfort,” said my uncle Toby, “that God Almighty is so good and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in it, it will never be inquired into whether we have done them in a red coat or a black one.”  “I hope not,” said the corporal.  “But go on, Trim,” said my uncle Toby, “with thy story.”

“When, I went up,” continued the corporal, “into the lieutenant’s room, which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes, he was lying in his bed with his head raised up on his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside it.  The youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion upon which I supposed he had been kneeling; the book was laid upon the bed, and as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time.  ‘Let it remain there, my dear,’ said the lieutenant.