At the same time it came to be gradually realized that the splendid manhood of the army and the navy was a vast mission force, which, if it could only be enlisted on the side of purity, temperance, and religion, might be of untold value to the empire and the home population.

It was plainly seen that if left, as it had hitherto been, to the homelessness of the barracks and the main-deck, and to the canteen and the public-house, it would certainly take the side of sin; and whilst defending the empire by its valour, would imperil it by its ill-living.

All these convictions were confirmed by the record of the noble lives of heroes, who were Christians as well as heroes, with which the history of the Crimean War and the Mutiny is enriched.  If a few could thus be saved, it was asked, why not many? if some, why not all?  For men of all ranks, of varied temperaments and gifts, were among the saved, some whose natural goodness made them easily susceptible of good, others ‘lost’ in very deed, sunk in the depths of a crude and brutal selfishness.

=Woman’s Work in this Field.=

As might be expected, the first to take to heart these special aspects of the case, and to embody the great awakening in the deeds of a practical beneficence, were women.  Miss Robinson and Miss Weston, Mrs. and Miss Daniel, Miss Wesley, and Miss Sandes will ever live among those who set themselves to fight the public-house and the brothel by opening at least one door, which, entering as to his own home, the soldier and the sailor would meet with purity instead of sin, and where the hand stretched out to welcome him would be not the harlot’s but the Christ’s.

=The Influence of Methodism.=

It was given to the Wesleyan Methodist Church to take the foremost place in this new departure.  Nor could it well be otherwise when the history of that Church is borne in mind.

The soldiers and man-of-war’s men of John Wesley’s time came in large numbers under the spell of his wonderful ministry.  Converted or not, they recognised in him a man; and his dauntless courage, his invincible good humour, and his practical sympathy, won for him from many of them a singular devotion, and from not a few a brave and noble comradeship.  Some came to be among his most successful preachers, and in the army, and out of it, nobly aided him in his victorious but arduous conflict with the evils of the time.  From Flanders to the Peninsula and Waterloo, and from Waterloo to the Crimea and the Mutiny, the bright succession continued.  Hence, when the nation awoke to its duty to its defenders, Methodism abundantly partook of the impulse, and threw itself heartily into every enterprise which it inspired.