[Footnote 15:  Methodist Times.]

=General Lyttleton’s Brigade Formed up for Prayer Before Going into Action.=

One of the most remarkable facts of the campaign is this.  Before General Lyttleton’s brigade marched out from its camping ground for its desperate task it was formed up in close column—­formed up not for an inspection, but for prayer.  We have never heard of anything else like it in the history of war.  The Bishop of Natal was with the troops, and he suggested to General Lyttleton that the best preparation for the battle was prayer.  He himself led in prayer for the other regiments, while at the request of the colonel the Army Scripture Reader attached to the Scottish Rifles offered prayer.  With prayer rising for them and following them, they marched to the conflict.  It was to many a Sacrament.  It was their Sacramentum—­their oath of allegiance to the King of kings.

Strange things happen in war.  Perhaps this is one of the strangest.  And yet if there were more prayer there would be less war.  May be the voice of prayer rising from our British army to the throne of God—­rising also from friends in the homeland far away, is another Sacrament—­a sign and a seal of the blessings foretold when the Prince of Peace shall reign.

=The Struggle for Spion Kop.=

Potgieter’s Drift, Spion Kop, Pieter’s Hill—­these are names that will live in the memory of every British soldier with Sir Redvers Buller.  Of all fights Spion Kop was perhaps the most terrible, as it was the most disastrous.  It was called Spion Kop, or Spying Mountain, because it was from this eminence the old Boer trekkers spied out the land in the days gone by.  It was more than a hill—­it was a mountain, and a mountain with a most precipitous ascent.  To climb it meant hauling oneself up from one rock to another.  It was a task that required all a strong man’s strength.  Yet up it went our men without a moment’s hesitation.  It was almost like climbing a house side.  But one man helped another, the stronger pulling up the weaker, until they halted for a moment breathless at the top.  ‘Charge!’ and away they went.  The bayonets were covered with blood after that awful charge, and then, their work for the moment accomplished, they lay down, for the bullets were whistling around them.  In the dense darkness they began to build sangars as best they could.  All night long they worked, and never for a moment were they allowed to work in peace.  When morning broke they saw that their entrenchments were far too small, and though they held out all day, their position was commanded by the Boers on higher ground, and so became untenable.  Shells burst behind every rock.  Bullets like hail rained upon them, and although they fought as all true Britishers can, they were at last withdrawn—­withdrawn, perhaps, when victory was almost within their grasp.

It is not our purpose to describe the fight; that we leave to others.  What we have said serves but as a reminder.  The question that concerns us is, How did our men hold themselves through that awful day?