But this drink monster is no respecter of persons, and makes no distinction of race, sweeping down all before it without any discrimination. An English soldier in Mandalay, who had been an abstainer for a considerable period, suddenly took to liquor again one day, and got drunk. That evening he took out his rifle, put in a cartridge, walked down out of the bungalow, and took the direction that the seven devils within him pointed out. This happened to be towards the sergeants’ mess, a separate building a stone’s-throw away. That evening, a party of sergeants were enjoying a festive gathering, in honour of the seventeenth anniversary of the enlistment of one of their number. His health had just been proposed, and he stood up to reply, when at that very moment the poor crazed drunkard outside fired, and shot the sergeant dead. There had been no provocation, and no reason could be assigned for the rash act. It was merely “the drink.” In the distant future, when the temperance reform shall have won its way, and the customs of English society shall have undergone a great change, people will greatly wonder that their forefathers took so long to discover that liquor was their enemy, and not their friend. Another example, and I bring these reminiscences to a close. It is the case of a soldier, who formerly belonged to a cavalry regiment, stationed at the time I speak of at one of the principal military stations in the south of India. He had plunged into drinking and vice, until at last he was told by the doctor that he had gone as far as his constitution would allow him, and that if he went any further it would be the end of him. This weighed upon his mind, and a deep sense of his sinfulness and a desire for better things resulted. He felt he needed Divine help, and he thought he had better begin again to pray, a thing he had long ceased to do. But how to begin in a barrack-room, where many pairs of eyes would see him, and misunderstand, and ridicule him? Well, he would wait until all was quiet, and then kneel down by his cot and pray. He waited, but as he was musing the fire kindled, and when he did begin to pray, so urgent was his pleading with God for mercy, that his voice rang through the barrack-room, and all his comrades were aroused by it. They thought he was mad. He was removed to the guard-room, and put under restraint. There, in the quietude of that solitary place, he found pardon, and his soul was filled with peace. Next day the medical officer saw him; he could not quite make out the case, but adopted the safe course of keeping him still under restraint. He told the doctor what it was that had caused the trouble of his mind, and how he had gained deliverance, adding that if they had said he was mad before, it would have been quite true, but that now he had come to his right mind. This explanation only induced the man of science dubiously to elevate his eyebrows. It was a kind of case he was not familiar with.