=’Prepare to meet your God!’=

A few more words may serve to complete the picture.

When all at once the Highland Brigade stumbled upon the Boer trenches, and speedily all the officers of his company was struck down, Colour-Sergeant McMillan (we believe a member of the Salvation Army) found himself in charge, and, waving his arm, shouted to his men, ’Men of A Company, prepare to meet your God!  Forward!  Charge!’ The next moment a bullet went through his brain, and he fell dead.  But surely that was not the time to prepare for such a dread meeting.  Thank God that he was ready.  We have heard him singing for Jesus in the old camp at home, and now he is singing in heaven.

=A Christian Hero.=

Many hours passed ere the wounded could be relieved.  They lay under the fierce rays of the African sun, suffering agonies from thirst, and no succour could reach them.  At last there were those who ventured to their help.  But the wounded were many, and the helpers were few.  The water-bottles were soon exhausted, but there was one soldier who had a few drops left.  He saw two lads lying side by side in the agonies of death.  He went to the first and offered him the water still remaining in his bottle.  The dying man was parched with thirst, and he looked at the water with a strange, sad longing, and then feebly shook his head.  ‘Nay,’ he said, ‘give it to the other lad. I have the water of life,’ and he turned round to die. That was Christian heroism!

But we will not linger longer over this tragic and pathetic tale.  Suffice it, all was done for the wounded that could possibly be done; and that Christian ministers committed reverently to the earth ’until the morning’ those who fell so bravely and so suddenly at Magersfontein.

Mr. Robertson shall close the chapter for us, in words as eloquent and as pathetic as any we have read for many years, and with his sad requiem we will let the curtain drop on the tragedy of Magersfontein.

[Illustration:  REV.  JAMES ROBERTSON.

(By permission of the publishers of St. Andrew.)]

=The Scottish Dead at Magersfontein.=[5]

’Our dead, our dear Scottish dead!  How the corpse-strewn fields of the Modder, Magersfontein, Koodoosberg, and Paardeberg sorrowfully pass before me!  Let me picture the scene, sad, yet not without its solace to those whose near and dear ones lie buried there, otherwise I would not paint it or reproduce my comments thereon, even by request.  ’Tis only a miniature, with a few details, that I attempt to draw.  One field—­nay, one corner of the field—­is descriptive of the rest, so I lift but a little of the dark-fringed curtain.

’Reverently, tenderly, lovingly handle them, and carefully identify them, for their own brave sakes, and that of the bereaved ones far away.  There, you will find the identity card in the side-pocket.  No, it’s