Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland Page 7
"And when the service was ended and the man returned to his home, hiswife came to him weeping; and she said, 'Did you see how some of themost wealthy and important people got up and went out this morning? Whydid you preach such a sermon, when we were just going to have the newwing added to our house, and you thought they were going to raise yoursalary? You have not a single Boer in your congregation! Why need yousay the Chartered Company raid on Johannesburg was wrong?'
"He said, 'My wife, if I believe that certain men whom we have raised onhigh, and to whom we have given power, have done a cowardly wrong, shallI not say it?'
"And she said, 'Yes, and only a little while ago, when Rhodes waslicking the dust off the Boers' feet that he might keep them fromsuspecting while he got ready this affair, then you attacked both Rhodesand the Bond (The Afrikander Bond, the organised Dutch political party,through whom Mr. Rhodes worked, and by whom he was backed.) for tryingto pass a Bill for flogging the niggers, and we lost fifty pounds wemight have got for the church?' And he said, 'My wife, cannot God beworshipped as well under the dome of the heaven He made as in a goldenpalace? Shall a man keep silence, when he sees oppression, to earn moneyfor God? If I have defended the black man when I believed him to bewronged, shall I not also defend the white man, my flesh-brother? Shallwe speak when one man is wronged and not when it is another?'
"And she said, 'Yes, but you have your family and yourself to think of!Why are you always in opposition to the people who could do somethingfor us? You are only loved by the poor. If it is necessary for you toattack some one, why don't you attack the Jews for killing Christ, orHerod, or Pontius Pilate; why don't you leave alone the men who are inpower today, and who with their money can crush you!'
"And he said, 'Oh my wife, those Jews, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate arelong dead. If I should preach of them now, would it help them? Would itsave one living thing from their clutches? The past is dead, it livesonly for us to learn from. The present, the present only, is ours towork in, and the future ours to create. Is all the gold of Johannesburgor are all the diamonds in Kimberley worth, that one Christian manshould fall by the hand of his fellows--aye, or one heathen brother?'
"And she answered, 'Oh, that is all very well. If you were a reallyeloquent preacher, and could draw hundreds of men about you, and in timeform a great party with you at its head, I shouldn't mind what you said.But you, with your little figure and your little voice, who will everfollow you? You will be left all alone; that is all the good that willever come to you through it.'
"And he said, 'Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped thatthey who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would liftup their voices and speak--and there is only a deadly silence? Hereand there one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind thehand; one says, 'My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud';and another says, 'I have a promise of land'; and another, 'I amsocially intimate with these men, and should lose my social standing ifI let my voice be heard.' Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, whichwe had hoped would be free and strong among the peoples of earth, isrotten and honeycombed with the tyranny of gold! We who had hoped tostand first in the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, arenot even fit to stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak ismy voice; and that that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remainsilent? Shall the glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is nota star set up on high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warmone frozen man's hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming acrossthe earth? Ever a voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me--'Whybreak your head against a stone wall? Leave this work to the greater andlarger men of your people; they who will do it better than you can doit! Why break your heart when life could be so fair to you?' But, oh mywife, the strong men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know mypower is as nothing?'
"He laid his head upon his hands.
"And she said, 'I cannot understand you. When I come home and tellyou that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, youalways answer me, 'Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that wecannot help them?' A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go tovisit people and treat them as your friends, into whose house I wouldnot go. Yet when the richest and strongest men in the land, who couldcrush you with their money, as a boy crushes a fly between his fingerand thumb, take a certain course, you stand and oppose them.'
"And he said, 'My wife, with the sins of the private man, what have I todo, if so be I have not led him into them? Am I guilty? I have enough todo looking after my own sins. The sin that a man sins against himself ishis alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is hisand theirs, not mine: but the sins that a man sins, in that he is takenup by the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they havearmed with their sword, whose power to strike is their power--his sinsare theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he daressay, 'I have no responsibility for this man's action.' We armed him, weraised him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is moreours than his. If this man's end in South Africa should be accomplished,and the day should come when, from the Zambezi to the sea, white manshould fly at white man's throat, and every man's heart burn withbitterness against his fellow, and the land be bathed with blood asrain--shall I then dare to pray, who have now feared to speak? Do notthink I wish for punishment upon these men. Let them take the millionsthey have wrung out of this land, and go to the lands of their birth,and live in wealth, luxury, and joy; but let them leave this land theyhave tortured and ruined. Let them keep the money they have made here;we may be the poorer for it; but they cannot then crush our freedom withit. Shall I ask my God Sunday by Sunday to brood across the land, andbind all its children's hearts in a close-knit fellowship;--yet, when Isee its people betrayed, and their jawbone broken by a stroke from thehand of gold; when I see freedom passing from us, and the whole landbeing grasped by the golden claw, so that the generation after us shallbe born without freedom, to labour for the men who have grasped all,shall I hold my peace? The Boer and the Englishman who have been in thisland, have not always loved mercy, nor have they always sought afterjustice; but the little finger of the speculator and monopolist who aredevouring this land will be thicker on the backs of the children of thisland, black and white, than the loins of the Dutchmen and Englishmen whohave been.'
"And she said, 'I have heard it said that it was our duty to sacrificeourselves for the men and women living in the world at the same time asourselves; but I never before heard that we had to sacrifice ourselvesfor people that are not born. What are they to you? You will be dust,and lying in your grave, before that time comes. If you believe in God,'she said, 'why cannot you leave it to Him to bring good out of all thisevil? Does He need YOU to be made a martyr of? or will the world be lostwithout YOU?'
"He said, 'Wife, if my right hand be in a fire, shall I not pull it out?Shall I say, 'God may bring good out of this evil,' and let it burn?That Unknown that lies beyond us we know of no otherwise than throughits manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sonsof men than through man. And shall I feel no bond binding me to the mento come, and desire no good or beauty for them--I, who am what I am,and enjoy what I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men havelived and laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted nocosts? Would the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever beaccomplished, if men counted the cost and created for their own livesalone? And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Youcannot tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voicewit
hin me, I know not what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for yourown children.' When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, andI despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something noblerand fairer may spring up in the spot where I now stand.'
"And she said, 'You want to put everyone against us! The other womenwill not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poorpeople. Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I knowyou would be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind toniggers. If they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them tohelp white men. You will never be on the side of the people who can doanything for us! You know the offer we had