One day I received a letter from a godly man in Ireland, who wrote asking me to go and see his son, a sergeant in the regiment then stationed in Mandalay. He was under an assumed name, a thing not unusual in the army. His father had not heard from him for ten years, but had just received a letter. It was a sad case—the old story—formerly in a very good position in the Excise in Ireland; drink his ruin. He lost his position, and finding himself at length in distress, enlisted. Being well educated he was soon promoted, but again and again got into trouble through drinking. This went on for years, until at last by sheer desperate effort he managed to pull himself together, feeling sure that if he went on much longer at the rate he was going, he would soon be in his grave. He admitted to me that though he had not, when I saw him, tasted liquor for over a year, the craving that came upon him sometimes was almost insupportable. I urged him to seek the converting grace of God, and get Divine help, which alone could keep straight one in his dangerous position, but he could not see it. I sat with him over an hour that afternoon, and he wept freely; we wept together as we talked about his home, his father, and the days of childhood and innocence, and as he recounted to me the story of his life. Soldiers and sailors are amongst the most candid and approachable of men with the chaplain, and I never find the least difficulty in getting at their hearts. But there was a peculiar difficulty in his case in another respect. He believed in his father, and there was much tenderness in his mind with regard to sacred things, but he seemed to be utterly sceptical as to Divine grace ever reaching _him_; and it was only with the utmost difficulty that I could get him to kneel in prayer. There seemed to be some hindrance that I could not remove. He came by invitation to my house, and spent an evening with us, but with a like result, and he steadily refrained from attending any of our services. Very shortly after I became acquainted with him, his regiment left for England, and I saw him no more. Let us hope that the scenes of home life once more, and other kindred influences, led to the completion of that work of grace and reformation, the beginning of which was evidenced by his long abstinence from liquor, his writing once more to his father, and the evident feeling he manifested when conversing about home and sacred things.