he
more vulgar stamp of white colonists, who, my friend observes, amuse
themselves by assuming a familiarity in intercourse with the natives,
which works badly. It does not at all increase their respect for the
white man, but quite the contrary, while it is as little calculated to
produce self-respect in the native. My friend found the natives
naturally respectful and courteous, when treated justly and humanely, in
fact as a _gentleman_ would treat them. Above all things, they honour a
man who is just. They have a keen sense of justice, and a quick
perception of the existence of this crowning quality in a man.
Livingstone said that he found that they also have a keen eye for a man
of pure and moral life.

The natives in the Transvaal have never asked for the franchise, or for
the smallest voice in the Government. In their hearts they hoped for and
desired simple legal justice; they asked for bread, and they received a
stone. It does not seem desirable that they should too early become
"full fledged voters." Some sort of Education test, some proof of a
certain amount of civilization and instruction attained, might be
applied with advantage; and to have to wait a little while for that does
not seem, from the Englishwoman's point of view at least, a great
hardship, when it is remembered how long our agricultural labourers had
to wait for that privilege, and that for more than fifty years English
women have petitioned for it, and have not yet obtained it, although
they are not, I believe, wholly uncivilized or uneducated.

The Theology of the Boers has been much commented upon; and it is
supposed by some that, as they are said to derive it solely from the Old
Testament Scriptures, it follows that the ethical teaching of those
Scriptures must be extremely defective. A Swiss Pastor writes to me: "It
is time to rescue the Old Testament from the Boer interpretation of it.
We have not enough of Old Testament righteousness among us Christians."
This is true. Those who have studied those Scriptures intelligently see,
through much that appears harsh and strange in the Mosaic prescriptions,
a wisdom and tenderness which approaches to the Christian ideal, as well
as certain severe rules and restrictions which, when observed and
maintained, lifted the moral standard of the Hebrew people far above
that of the surrounding nations. When Christ came on earth, He swept
away all that which savoured of barbarism, the husk which often
howev