yranny of gold! We who had hoped to
stand first in the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, are
not even fit to stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak is
my voice; and that that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remain
silent? Shall the glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is not
a star set up on high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warm
one frozen man's hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming across
the earth? Ever a voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me--'Why
break your head against a stone wall? Leave this work to the greater and
larger men of your people; they who will do it better than you can do
it! Why break your heart when life could be so fair to you?' But, oh my
wife, the strong men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know my
power is as nothing?'

"He laid his head upon his hands.

"And she said, 'I cannot understand you. When I come home and tell
you that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you
always answer me, 'Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we
cannot help them?' A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to
visit people and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would
not go. Yet when the richest and strongest men in the land, who could
crush you with their money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger
and 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 to
do, if so be I have not led him into them? Am I guilty? I have enough to
do looking after my own sins. The sin that a man sins against himself is
his alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is his
and theirs, not mine: but the sins that a man sins, in that he is taken
up by the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they have
armed with their sword, whose power to strike is their power--his sins
are theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he dares
say, 'I have no responsibility for this man's action.' We armed him, we
raised him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is more
ours 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 man
should fly at white man's throat, and every man's heart burn with
bitterness against his fellow, and the land be bathed with blood as
rain--shall I then dare to p