On my arrival in Pretoria Mr Goodwin was at my request at once appointed as Acting Army Chaplain, and shortly after received the following most gratifying communication:—
British Agency,
Pretoria, 9th June 1900.
Dear Sir,—If you could kindly call on Lord Roberts some time to-day or to-morrow, it would give him great pleasure to meet one who has done so much for our prisoners of war.—Yours faithfully,
(Sd.) H. V. Conan,
The Rev. Goodwin. Lt.-Col., Mil. Sec.
When Mr Goodwin accordingly called nothing could well exceed the warmth of the welcome and of the thanks the field-marshal graciously accorded him.
Among the prisoners at the Waterfall was a well-known Wesleyan sergeant of the 18th Hussars, who rallied around him all such as were of a devout spirit and became the recognised leader of the religious life of the prison camp. I therefore requested him to supply me with a brief statement of what in this respect had been done by the prisoners for the prisoners. He accordingly sent me the following letter:—
Pretoria, 7th July 1900.
Reverend and Dear Sir,—Long before you asked me to write an account of the Christian work which was carried on from the 22nd of October 1899 to the 6th of June 1900, among the British prisoners of war at the Pretoria Racecourse, and afterwards at Waterfall, it had occurred to me that for the encouragement of other Christian workers particularly, and the members of the Church of Christ generally, some record should be made of the wonderful way in which God blessed us, and it is with the greatest pleasure that I accede to your request.
I was one of the 160 who were taken prisoners after the battle of Talana Hill (Dundee), and a few days after arriving at our destination (Pretoria Racecourse) we heard some of our guard singing psalms and we immediately decided to ask the commandant for a tent for devotional purposes. It was given, and after the first few nights, till we were released by our own forces seven months afterwards, it was filled to overflowing nightly. On our being removed to Waterfall, we enlarged our tent to three times its original size, and later on we begged building material from the commandant, and built a very nice hall with a platform and seating accommodation for over 240. At last this became too small and we went into the open air twice a week, when no less than 500 to 700 congregated to hear the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
When we asked for the small tent we had no idea of the work growing as it did. We used to meet together every night, a simple gathering together of God's children, four in number, which increased to one hundred, with the Lord Himself as teacher. Then our comrades began to attend and we commenced to hold evangelistic services, which were continued to the end.