“At night, Farewell Meeting in the amphitheatre.  It was a considerable strain on me, as I hadn’t a minute to prepare.  I had promised myself a couple of hours in the afternoon, when some Dutch ministers came down upon me to open a Y.W.C.A. building that they had just converted from a low public-house at Beaconsfield a suburb of Kimberley.  If I would only go for half an hour they would be so grateful.  I couldn’t refuse, so my bit of leisure was seized upon.

“However, we had a very good Meeting.  We were nearly full.  I made a new speech which went, I thought, with considerable power, and then commissioned separate detachments for operations amongst the Zulus and Swazis—­outriders for the Orange Free State, and Officers for various branches of Social Work.  The leaders of each detachment spoke very well indeed.  Promising fellows, all of them.

“At the close of the public Meeting I had to have another for Soldiers, Officers, and Auxiliaries.  This I was compelled to conclude earlier than I should otherwise have done by the announcement that the electric light would soon give out.  However, we had a very nice finish, and I got to bed about 11.30.

“Thursday.—­Breakfast with the Staff Officers at 8.  An hour and three-quarters’ good straight talk afterwards with beautiful influence, everybody so tender.  At the close I said, ’Now let us kneel down,’ and after a little prayer asked them to link hands with me, and let us give ourselves up again to Jesus for the service of God and The Army.”

Such tender-hearted linkings together of those who have the leadership of The Army’s various departments have alone prevented the separations of heart that must inevitably be threatened wherever a number of very strong-willed men and women are engaged in labours into which they throw their whole soul, and in which they cannot, perhaps should not, avoid the feeling that their own department is, after all, the most important in the world.  But any one who thinks will understand how men and women so blended together in fellowship with God and each other have been able to override all contrary influences in every country.

“E. (the leader of our Work in South Africa) then turned to me” (the letter goes on) “and made a few appropriate remarks about his own devotion to The Army, and on behalf of every Officer, present and absent, assured me that they loved The Army as it was, and did not want any alterations in Orders or Regulations, and were prepared to live and die in the War.  I don’t remember anything more tender and affecting on the conclusion of a Council.

     “I shook hands all round and we parted.  God bless them.  I made a
     hasty call at the Rescue Home, and was very pleased with it—­a
     really nice little place.