DANIEL WHEELER. CHAPTER I. 66 IN THE ARMY AND NAVY. 'And yet, thus 'wildered, not without a guide, "I WAS born in London, the 27th day of the B ing the drainage of land in Russia, and finally his missionary labours in the far off isles of the South Sea, and in America as an able minister of the Gospel of Christ. Daniel Wheeler's parents were members of the Church of England. His mother was no exception to the saying attributed to Buonaparte, that celebrated men were the offspring of superior mothers, for he speaks of her as a woman of large capacity, combining great sweetness with firmness of mind." He was, however, early deprived of the benefit of her care and influence by her death when he was about twelve years old, his father having died about five years previously. A situation at sea was shortly found for the orphan boy, and he sailed in a merchant vessel for Portugal, having on this his first voyage a very narrow escape from fire, the danger being increased by the river Douro being frozen at the time. On his return, he went into the navy and continued there nearly six years; but by his recklessness and folly he lost the opportunity of renewing his situation, and, not being acquainted with a trade, was brought into such abject poverty that he was strongly tempted to take away his own life. From this rash step he was mercifully preserved, and finally entered the army as a private soldier. い Here may be said to begin, if we like to call it so, "the romance of real life," proving, alas! a terrible confirmation of the truth that "the way of transgressors is hard." Wheeler's regiment was ordered to Ireland during a time of great agitation, and he escaped, almost as by a miracle, the fearful alternative of killing another to save his own life. The Continent of Europe was at this time plunged into the horrors of the French Revolution, and the young soldier, who was now simply a machine in the hands of others, was sent abroad to join the British Army then under the command of the Duke of York. Terrible suffering ensued, to which even the battle-field, where the cannon "volleyed and thundered," must have seemed preferable; for the troops were "wholly unprovided with provisions and every common necessary." Let those who speak of the glories of war look at its stern realities and tell us how they can reconcile its mandates with the merciful code of the Sermon on the Mount. Wheeler tells us of "the constant exposure to every shower of rain that fell, without covering over my head, and with no couch but the earth, and that at times soaked with wet; whilst harassed by fatiguing marches night after night and with little rest by day; amidst hunger and thirst, being often short of food for days together, and occasionally no water to be had without digging a well to procure it to avoid the unwholesome waters of the stagnant pools; for several weeks together my clothes were never taken off but to renew a shirt, and my shoes but seldom off my weary feet." Constant exposure and extreme fatigue brought on a very serious attack of fever, during which he heard one of the surgeons who attended him in the hospital saying, "He will not want anything long." He was not, however, to die as a forlorn exile, a victim of war, but to recover to show forth the praises of Him who was about to call him "out of darkness into His marvellous light." One more remarkable preservation which preceded his conversion has yet to be narrated. When on a subsequent occasion he had been some weeks at sea in "a remarkably fine vessel," he proposed to one of his friends to leave her and go on board an old collier which came alongside. This unaccountable action, as it seemed, they persisted in carrying out, amidst the ridicule of their shipmates. The same evening a hurricane arose, and the vessel they had left was never heard of afterwards. Whether partly owing to this circumstance or not he never seemed decidedly to know, but it was about this period, and whilst still at sea, that the great and lasting change took place which altered the whole course of his life. He appears to have been deeply convicted by the Holy Spirit, without human means, of his own "lost condition by nature, and mercifully enabled also to see the remedy and the entire spirituality of the Gospel dispensation." Becoming" dissatisfied with the military profession, he resolved that if permitted again to reach the |