204 sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War 



feeling from his own experiences he would know how to help 

 others and be able to sympathise with them. That holy man 

 Father Engleheart, who was a chaplain to the lepers on Robben 

 Island, took a great interest in young Benton, becoming to him 

 a father in spirit and in deed. 



His advice to the young man was that he could not hope to 

 take Orders until he had given himself up as a deserter ; this 

 was agreat shock, as Benton quite thought that his active service 

 with the Australians had purged his desertion. He was told 

 this was not so, and was advised to journey home and give 

 himself up, and that should the sentence be of a nature to 

 disqualify him, he must accept it as God's indication that He 

 did not call him to the Priesthood. This was a bitter pill. 



Some of the letters he wrote home during this moral up- 

 heaval are interesting ; they were mostly addressed to his step- 

 mother, to whom he was greatly attached. Writing from 

 Robben Island on December 3, 1904, while still living under the 

 name of White, he says : 



" I hardly know how to start writing to you, as I feel so 

 utterly ashamed of myself for neglecting so long to answer j^our 

 kind letter to me. I am afraid the truth is that until quite 

 lately I have been so utterly selfish in thinking of my own 

 advancement that I could not spare time to write to anybody ; 

 however, thank God that time has passed, and I am writing to 

 ask you to forgive my past unkindness and neglect and let us 

 make a fresh start. I am the more encouraged to ask it now at 

 this season of peace and goodwill towards all men, as I remember 

 you used to think so much of this season. 



" Am settled down on this wonderful little island close to 

 Cape Town and yet absolutely cut off from it. Later on, when 

 I have paid all my debts (which is at present taking up every 

 penny of my w^ages), I will send you some views of the Island. 

 It is difficult though, even with them, to get any idea of what it 

 is really like, and quite impossible to form any idea of the 

 inhabitants. It is a wonderful idea to think of being put down 

 in a place where there are over 1,000 souls composed of lunatics, 

 lepers, and convicts, with the object of serving them. Were it 

 not for the great fact that we can see Jesus Christ gazing at us 

 and asking pity from their eyes, we might often feel them 



