About this time a very melancholy accident happened to some men of the 13th regiment of foot. Their regimental store house was in a building a few yards from the hospital; some of them were employed sorting cartridges in a room on the first floor, when one of them came in smoking tobacco, and thoughtlessly held his head over an open chest into which they were packing the cartridges; a spark fell from the pipe, and the powder exploded and gave a violent shock to the hospital and adjacent buildings; several men, and a serjeant's wife, were killed in the house, and I think nine or ten more were much bruised and dreadfully burned, and were brought into the hospital; their condition was more pitiful than that of those who were severely wounded, because so much of the skin of the face and body had been burned, that they had not sound skin left to lie upon; five or six of them lingered about a week in great agony, and died. I think that twelve or sixteen were killed or severely injured by this accident. Some who were sitting in the bottom of an open window, with their legs over the wall, were blown down into the street, but were not much hurt. Towards the end of September, my wound was nearly whole, but my leg was very much contracted. I was ordered to prepare to join my regiment at Alexandria to go home with it. But before taking a final leave of the hospitals, I would make a few further remarks upon the manner in which I saw my fellow creatures depart this life. And it must be confessed, that to all appearance many of them died _hardy_; they might groan through extremity of bodily pain, but did not exhibit any anguish of mind at the fear of death or judgment; but I could not discern any rational ground for this apparent want of anxiety about futurity. To make a merit of meeting death bravely, when it can not be avoided, is but a poor reason for a rational, immortal, and accountable creature, to act upon. If man is a sinner, and must render an account to his Maker when he dies, surely to manifest no concern about the issue of death, is not to act the part worthy of a rational creature. To shut out all concern about eternity, in order to act the _hero_ at the last, is liker the conduct of a blind madman than a true _hero_; for true courage in the hour of death can only be founded on the knowledge of our being happier hereafter; and this persuasion is only to be attained, by the reception of the good news of salvation by Jesus Christ, revealed in the Scriptures. Infidelity has said much against the superstition of the Bible; but while it does this, it gives an accountable creature nothing in the room of it upon which to found a reasonable hope for eternity. Infidels have often said that the fears of hell which make men afraid to die, are the produce of superstition. Were there none of those whom I saw die, who had freed themselves of the fears produced by the Bible account of a future state? It is likely that some of them had; for their