Three years passed since then--three years of prayer on his account--and
on the night of November 28, 1899, after the river had been passed, a
hand was laid on that Christian's shoulder, and a voice said: 'Joe, I
have done to-day what I have not done for thirteen years: I have offered
up a prayer, and it has been answered. I have these last few hours seen
all my life--seen it, as, I fancy, God sees it--and I have vowed, if He
will forgive me, to change my ways.'

With Christian thoughtfulness his friend did not remind him of the
incident at Gibraltar, but it was doubtless present to both minds just
then. So does war melt the hardest hearts!


=Open-air Work.=

The letters from Christian soldiers at the front are full of stories of
conversion. Again, we hear of private soldiers and non-commissioned
officers at outposts conducting parades. After Magersfontein, the
Christian influence deepened and the number of conversions increased.
By-and-by, enteric began to claim its victims, and the Home had to be
used as a fever hospital. Open-air work then became the order of the
day. Some of the Christian soldiers met between six and seven in the
evening, and marched to the camp of a regiment or battery, where they
held what they call an 'out and out' open-air meeting. Sometimes they
would get as many as a thousand listeners, and often the Word was so
powerful that there and then men decided for Christ. The Saturday
Testimony Meetings were gatherings of great power, as our soldier-lads
told to the others, who crowded round, what a great Saviour they had
found.