no man dieth to himself. You
cannot tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice
within me, I know not what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for your
own children.' When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, and
I despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something nobler
and fairer may spring up in the spot where I now stand.'

"And she said, 'You want to put everyone against us! The other women
will not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor
people. Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know
you would be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to
niggers. If they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to
help white men. You will never be on the side of the people who can do
anything for us! You know the offer we had from--'

"And he said, 'Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the
Turk to me; am I responsible for their action? It is my own nation,
mine, which I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me. I
would that wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples
of earth might gather under it, saying, 'Under this banner is freedom
and justice which knows no race or colour.' I wish that on our banner
were blazoned in large letters "Justice and Mercy", and that in every
new land which our feet touch, every son among us might see ever
blazoned above his head that banner, and below it the great order:--"By
this sign, Conquer!"--and that the pirate flag which some men now wave
in its place, may be torn down and furled for ever! Shall I condone the
action of some, simply because they happen to be of my own race, when in
Bushman or Hottentot I would condemn it? Shall men belonging to one of
the mightiest races of earth, creep softly on their bellies, to attack
an unwarned neighbour; when even the Kaffir has again and again given
notice of war, saying, 'Be ready, on such and such a day I come to fight
you?' Is England's power so broken, and our race so enfeebled, that we
dare no longer to proclaim war; but must creep silently upon our bellies
in the dark to stab, like a subject people to whom no other course is
open? These men are English; but not English-MEN. When the men of our
race fight, they go to war with a blazoned flag and the loud trumpet
before them. It is because I am an Englishman that these things crush
me. Better that ten thousand of us should lie dead and defeated on