Читать книгу From Aldershot to Pretoria - William E. Sellers - Страница 12

But these efforts, noble though they were, by no means met the full necessity. For solicitude on behalf of our soldiers and our sailors being once aroused, their daily life on board ship and in barracks soon compelled attention. Its homelessness and monotony, its utter lack of quiet and rest, its necessary isolation from all the comforts and amenities of social life, the consequent eagerness with which the men—wearied well-nigh to death, yet full of lusty vigorous life—went anywhere for change, society, and excitement—all these things broke like a revelation on the awakened conscience of the nation. The terrible fact, to which reference has already been made, that hitherto almost the only sections of the civil community which had catered for them was the publican, the harlot, and the crimp, that they had indeed been left to the tender mercies of the wicked, still further deepened the impression.

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.