It was the 22nd March, 1855, just outside Sebastopol. The night was
dark and gusty. Close to the Russian entrenchments was an advanced
post of the British forces, commanded by Captain Hedley Vicars.
Fifteen thousand Russians under cover of the gloom had come out
from Sebastopol and driven our French allies out of their advanced
trenches. Then a portion of this force stealthily advanced, seeking to
take the British by surprise.
The first to discover the presence of the enemy was Hedley Vicars.
With great judgment he made his men lie down till the Russians were
within twenty paces. Then, springing to his feet, he shouted:--
"Now, 97th, on your pins and charge!"
His force was about 200, that of the enemy nearly 2000! Wounded in the
breast at the first onset, he still led the charge. "Men of the 97th,
follow me!" rang out his voice above the din of battle, and leaping
the parapet of the entrenchment he charged the enemy down the ravine.
"This way, 97th!" was his last command--still at the head of his
men. His sword had already dealt with two of the foe, and was again
uplifted, when a musket shot, fired at close quarters, severed an
artery; and the work on earth of this gallant man was over.
Hedley Vicars was a true soldier and earnest Christian. The last words
he wrote, penned the night before he died, were: "I spent the evening
with Cay. I read Isaiah, xli.; and he prayed. We walked together
during the day, and exchanged our thoughts about Jesus."
He spent a busy time in the Crimea, doing plenty of hard work in the
trenches; and when off duty engaged in hospital visiting, tract and
book distributing, attending prayer meetings and mission services,
constant in his Bible reading, and always endeavouring to do good to
others.
Here is an entry from his diary on the 4th March, 1855: "Sunday. Had
Divine service in camp. We afterwards met together in a tent. All
present. Then sat on a regimental board, after which I went to the
Guards' camp for Cay; and we then went, laden with tracts, books and
prayers, to the remaining hospitals of the Second Division, where we
distributed all we had. Had service in our hospital tent on my return,
and prayed with one of the sick, particularly, who asked me to do
so... I spoke to him of and directed him to 'look to Jesus' the
Saviour. Service in the tent again in the evening. ... Oh, what a
happy day this has been!... I must now conclude, as I must get ready
for the trenches."
[Illustration: HEDLEY VICARS LEADING THE 97TH.]
On 12th January he wrote: "I have just returned from a night in the
trenches, having come off the sick list yesterday morning. Last Sunday
I was unable to leave my tent, but I had happy communion with Jesus
in my solitude, and derived much pleasure from the fourteenth and
fifteenth of St. John. How true is the peace of mind that cleaving to
Christ brings to a man! There is nothing like it in this world."
Such was Hedley Vicars--a bright, loving, faithful Christian. He knew
what it was to be without peace; for having got into debt when he was
first in the army, and knowing the distress it caused his family at
home, his mind was so troubled that he wrote to his mother: "Oh, what
agony I have endured! What sleepless nights I have passed since the
perusal of that letter! The review of my past life, especially the
retrospect of the last two years, has at last quite startled me, and
at the same time disgusted me." And again: "Oh, that I had the last
two years allotted to me to live over again!"
His mother's letters stirred him to sorrow for past faults and desires
to live a new life. The sudden death of his fellow-officer, Lieut.
Bindon, made him realise the uncertainty of earthly things.
In November, 1851, whilst at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was awaiting the
return of a brother-officer to his room, and idly turning over the
leaves of a Bible that was upon the table. He caught sight of the
words, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin".
The message went home. That night he hardly slept. With the morning
came LIGHT AND LIFE. Like Christian in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ he
looked to the cross, and his burden rolled away.
Feeling keenly his own weakness he bought a large Bible, and placed it
open on the table in his sitting-room, determined that an open Bible
in the future should be his colours. "It was to speak for me," he
said, "before I was strong enough to speak for myself." The usual
result followed. His friends did not like his "new colours". One
accused him of "turning Methodist," and departed; another warned him
not to become a hypocrite, and remarked, "Bad as you were, I never
thought you would come to this, old fellow!" So for a time he was
nearly deserted.
But he had got that which was better than any ordinary friendships.
Though he often came under the fire of jeers and taunts--more trying
to most men than the rifle bullets of the enemy--he experienced a new
joy which increased and deepened.
Later on he would spend four or five hours daily in Bible reading,
meditation and prayer, so that whereas he had written a few months
earlier: "Oh! dear mother, I wish I felt more what I write!" he
was now daily becoming more earnest, patient and watchful, and was
gradually putting on the whole armour of God.
And so, during those three short years that intervened between his
call to grace and his death at the early age of thirty, he did the
work of a lifetime; and of him it can be truly said (as of many
another alluded to in this book) that "he being dead yet speaketh".