Part 39

All day long the duke was cool as if he had been riding among his men in Hyde Park. Wherever he went a murmur of "Silence! stand to your front!" was heard, and at his presence men grew steady as on parade.

Again and again commanders told him of the fearful havoc made in the ranks of their brigades, and asked either for support or to be allowed to withdraw their men. They generally received this answer, "It is impossible; you must hold the ground to the last man".

When asked by some of his staff what they should do if he fell, he gave the same answer, "My plan is simply to stand my ground here to the last man".

The duke seemed to bear a charmed life. Every member of his staff but one was during the day either killed or wounded, whilst he escaped unhurt. Wherever the danger seemed greatest there was the duke to be found inspiriting his men, restraining them, or putting fresh heart into them.

"Hard pounding this, gentlemen!" he remarked to a battalion on which the French shells were falling with destructive fury; "but we will try who can pound the longest." "Wait a little longer, my lads," was the duke's reply to the murmur which reached him from some of his troops who had suffered heavily from the French fire and were anxious to charge, "and you shall have your wish."

Once when the fire was concentrated on the spot where he was with his staff he told them to separate a little, so as to afford a less conspicuous mark for the enemy.

At another time, when some German troops hesitated to advance against the French, the duke put himself at their head.

When Napoleon's Old Guard was advancing up the hill, the only sight they could see was the duke and a few mounted officers, till a voice was heard, "Up, guards, and at them!" And the best men in the whole French army, the pick of the bravest of the brave, fell back before the onset of the British guards.

At about eight o'clock the duke gave the joyful signal for an advance all along the line. For nearly nine hours the British had been stormed at with shot and shell, had been charged again and again, and had stood firm though impatient. Now they received the signal with a fierce delight, and dashed forward against the enemy with a fury which nothing could resist.

The duke was amongst the first to advance, and spoke joyously to the men as he rode along. The bullets were whistling around him, and one of his staff ventured to point out to him the terrible danger he was running. "Never mind," said the duke, "let them fire away: the battle's won, and my life is of no consequence now."

About 15,000 men out of Wellington's army were killed or wounded on the day of this great battle. But Europe was saved.

The duke, who appeared so calm and unmoved in battle, thus wrote just afterwards, when the excitement of the conflict was over: "My heart is broken at the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

A PRINCE OF PREACHERS.

THE STORY OF JOHN WESLEY.

"I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child that Thou hast so mercifully provided for than ever I have been, that I may do my endeavour to instil into his mind the principles of Thy true religion and virtue. Lord, give me grace to do it sincerely and prudently, and bless my attempts with good success!"

Thus wrote Susanna Wesley of her son John. The child had been nearly burned to death when he was about six years old in a fire that broke out at the Rectory of Epworth, where John and Charles Wesley and a large family were born.

Mrs. Wesley devoted herself to the training of her children, taught them to cry softly even when they were a year old, and conquered their wills even earlier than that. Her one great object was so to prepare her little ones for the journey of life that they might be God's children both in this world and the next. To that end she devoted all her endeavours.

Is it wonderful that, with her example before their eyes and her fervent prayers to help them, the Wesleys made a mark upon the world?

John Wesley--"the brand plucked out of the burning," as he termed himself--when a boy was remarkable for his piety. At eight his father admitted him to the Holy Communion. He had thus early learned the lesson of self-control; for his mother tells us that having smallpox at this age he bore his disease bravely, "like a man and indeed like a Christian, without any complaint, though he seemed angry at the smallpox when they were sore, as we guessed by his looking sourly at them".

At the age of ten John Wesley went to Charterhouse School. For a long time after he got there he had little to live on but dry bread, as the elder boys had a habit of taking the little boys' meat; but so far from this hurting him he said, in after life, that he thought it was good for his health!

Although he was not at school remarkable for the piety he had shown earlier, yet he never gave up reading his Bible daily and saying his prayers morning and evening.

At the age of twenty-two he began to think of entering the ministry, and wrote to his parents about it. He also commenced to regulate the whole tone of his life. "I set apart," he writes, "an hour or two a day for religious retirement; I communicated every week; I watched against all sin, whether in word or deed. I began to aim at and pray for inward holiness." In September, 1725, when he had just passed his twenty-second year, he was ordained.

Thirteen years later John Wesley began that series of journeys to all parts of the kingdom for the purpose of preaching the Gospel, which continued for over half a century.

In that time it is said that he travelled 225,000 miles, and preached more than 40,000 sermons--an average of more than two for every day of the year.

As to the numbers who flocked to hear some of his addresses they can best be realised by those who have attended an international football match, when 20,000 persons are actually assembled in one field, or at a review, when a like number of people are together. It seems impossible to realise that one voice could reach such a multitude; yet it is a fact that some of John Wesley's open-air congregations consisted of over 20,000 persons.

Those were the early days of Methodism, when Whitefield and Wesley were preaching the Gospel, and giving it a new meaning to the multitude.

Here is Wesley's record of one day's work: "May, 1747, Sunday, 10.--I preached at Astbury at five, and at seven proclaimed at Congleton Cross Jesus Christ our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. It rained most of the time that I was speaking; but that did not hinder abundance of people from quietly attending. Between twelve and one I preached near Macclesfield, and in the evening at Woodly-green."

His addresses were so fervent that they acted at times like an electric shock. Some would drop down as if thunderstruck, others would cry aloud, whilst others again would have convulsions.