Otherwise, the practice is surely undefensible.

"I am aware, however, that with the exception of a small class, these are sentiments which are not shared by the great majority of the public, either at home or abroad."

A French gentleman, who has been for many years connected with the Missions Evangéliques of France, related recently in my presence some incidents of the early experience of French Missionaries in South Africa. One of these had laboured for years without encouragement. The hearts of the native people around him remained unmoved. One day, however, he spoke among them especially of Calvary, of the sufferings of Christ on the Cross. A Chief who was present left the building in which the teacher was speaking. At the close, this Chief was found sitting on the ground outside, his back to the door, his head bent forward and buried in his arms. He was weeping. When spoken to, he raised his arm with a movement of deprecation, and, in a voice full of pity and indignation, said—"to think that there was no one even to give Him a drink of water!" That poor savage had known what thirst is. This one awakened chord of human sympathy with the human Christ was communicative. Other hearts were touched, and from that time the Missionary began to reap a rich harvest from his labours. In the midst of the elaborate services of our fashionable London churches is there often to be found so genuine a feeling as that which shook the soul of this Chief, and broke down the barrier of coldness and hardness in his fellow-countrymen which had before prevented the acceptance of the message of Salvation and of the practical obligations of Christianity among them? Men who are capable of rising to the knowledge and love of divine truth cannot be supposed to be impervious to the influence of civilization properly understood.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The financial resources of the country at that time amounted to 12s. 6d.]

[Footnote 2: Quoted from Parliamentary Blue Book.]

[Footnote 3: Report made on the spot by Mr. Shepstone (not Sir
Theophilus Shepstone), Secretary for Native Affairs.]

[Footnote 4: The name of that official was held back from publication at the time, as if his act were known by the Boers, it was believed it might have cost the man his life.]

II.

THE CAUSES OF THE WAR DATE FAR BACK. THE FAULTS OF ENGLAND TO BE SOUGHT IN THE PAST. A REVISED VERDICT NEEDED. DOWNING STREET GOVERNMENT AND SUCCESSIVE COLONIAL GOVERNORS. M. MABILLE AND M. DIETERLEN, FRENCH MISSIONARIES. EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE COLONY. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY GREAT BRITAIN. COMPENSATION TO SLAVE OWNERS. FIRST TREK OF THE BURGHERS.

There is nothing so fallacious or misleading in history as the popular tendency to trace the causes of a great war to one source alone, or to fix upon the most recent events leading up to it, as the principal or even the sole cause of the outbreak of war. The occasion of an event may not be, and often is not, the cause of it. The occasion of this war was not its cause. In the present case it is extraordinary to note how almost the whole of Europe appears to be carried away with the idea that the causes of this terrible South African war are, as it were, only of yesterday's date. The seeds of which we are reaping so woeful a harvest were not sown yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are reaping a harvest which has been ripening for a century past.

At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it was given out and believed by the world in general that the cause of that hideous revolt was a supposed attempt on the part of England to impose upon the native army of India certain rules which, from their point of view, outraged their religion in some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the legend of the greased cartridges). After the mutiny was over, Sir Herbert Edwardes, a true Seer, whose insight enabled him to look far below the surface, and to go back many years into the history of our dealings with India in order to take in review all the causes of the rebellion, addressed an exhaustive report to the British Government at home, dealing with those causes which had been accumulating for half-a-century or more. This was a weighty document,—one which it would be worth while to re-peruse at the present day; it had its influence in leading the Home Government to acknowledge some grave errors which had led up to this catastrophe, and to make an honest and persevering attempt to remedy past evils. That this attempt has not been in vain, in spite of all that India has had to suffer, has been acknowledged gratefully by the Native delegates to the great Annual Congress in India of the past year.

In the case of the Indian Mutiny, the incident of the supposed insult to their religious feelings was only the match which set light to a train which had been long laid. In the same way the honest historian will find, in the present case, that the events,—the "tragedy of errors," as they have been called,—of recent date, are but the torch that has set fire to a long prepared mass of combustible material which had been gradually accumulating in the course of a century.

In order to arrive at a true estimate of the errors and mismanagement which lie at the root of the causes of the present war, it is necessary to look back. Those errors and wrongs must be patiently searched out and studied, without partisanship, with an open mind and serious purpose. Many of our busy politicians and others have not the time, some perhaps have not the inclination for any such study. Hence, hasty, shallow, and violent judgments.

Never has there occurred in history a great struggle such as the present which has not had a deep moral teaching.

England is now suffering for her past errors, extending over many years.
The blood of her sons is being poured out like water on the soil of
South Africa. Wounded hearts and desolated families at home are counted
by tens of thousands.

But it needs to be courageously stated by those who have looked a little below the surface that her faults have not been those which are attributed to her by a large proportion of European countries, and by a portion of her own people. These appear to attribute this war to a sudden impulse on her part of Imperial ambition and greed, and to see in the attitude which they attribute to her alone, the provocative element which was chiefly supplied from the other side. There will have to be a Revision of this Verdict, and there will certainly be one; it is on the way, though its approach may be slow. It will be rejected by some to the last.

The great error of England appears to have been a strange neglect, from time to time, of the true interests of her South African subjects, English, Dutch, and Natives. There have been in her management of this great Colony alternations of apathy and inaction, with interference which was sometimes unwise and hasty. Some of her acts have been the result of ignorance, indifference, or superciliousness on the part of our rulers.

The special difficulties, however, in her position towards that Colony should be taken into account.

It has always been a question as to how far interference from Downing Street with the freedom of action of a Self-Governing Colony was wise or practicable. In other instances, the exercise of great freedom of colonial self-government has had happy results, as in Canada and Australia.

Far from our South African policy having represented, as is believed by some, the self-assertion of a proud Imperialism, it has been the very opposite.

It seems evident that some of the greatest evils in the British government of South