TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 11875, 23 April 1904, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Dutch Reformed The Church of the TransNational Scouts' vaal is determined not Church. to allow the bitterness against the National Scouts to be forgotten. The circumstances of the quarrel are fairly ■well known. In May last, acting mainly on the advice of the Rev. Mr Bosnian, the committee of the Transvaal Church passed a resolution which amounted to a ban of excommunication against those members who fought on the British side during the .war. They were denied the sacrament; their infant children were refused baptism; they were ostracised in social and religions life, and every indignity was heaped upon them. In self-defence the Xational Scouts and the hands-uppers threatened to secede land form a church of their own if Uμ resolution were not reconsidered. The Dutch Synod then amended its resolution, leaving it open to (Tie Xational Scouts to be received back into the Church if they asked for pardon and acknowledged their crime. This the Scouta steadily refused to do.- They deny that they committed any crime, maintaining that they acted in the best interests of the Boers, to terminate the war, and prevent the extinction of the race. Aβ a compromise, they suggested the retractation of the resolution, a public apology, and guarantees for future treatment, but Mr Bosnian retorted that the resolution was irrevicable —the offenders had put thsmselves beyond the pale. The National Scoute then acted -upon their word, and formed a church of their own, receiving the sympathy of the Government in the course they followed. The result of > this was the publication of a letter by the church committee of the Dutch Reformed Church of the Transvaal to the congregations throughout South Africa, This dieclosed little, if any, hope of ultimate conciliation, unless the National Borate recanted and eought conversion. It promieea rather gloomily for the future of racial conciliation in the new colonies that, According to tie circular, "Sir Arthur Lawley's attitude in sympathising with the Scoute has given mortal ■offence to the governing body of the Church." Sir Arthur ie charged with a desire to promote schism for political reasons, and the Englkh people in the Transvaal with gloating over the dissension. The resolution ■ of the- General Assembly, it ie explained, is aimed at three classes, namely, those who took up arms against their own people, the leader* of the enemy's forces, and those who gave information to> the enemy, and m notrise at the "hands-uppers." Though it is difficult to see how the Church committee's action can tend to that end, the hope ia finally expressed that the Scoute' Church will not last long, and that the recalcitrants may return to the fold. A delightfully new coinShakespeare ment on the history of and St. George, whose anniSaint George, veisary is celebrated to-day, is founded upon the reported habitg of that dragon equally well known to fame. Coming oub from a neighbouring marah, he made an evening habit", it is eaid, of annoying the people of Pekne by devouring flocks and herds, or even beautiful young girl*, and spreading pestilence ac he breathed. And the latest critic remarks: —"Doubtless the very modern wiH discover some connection with malaria hero, and may find in Saint George the patron saint of bacteriologists." Shakespeare, born on tho 23rd of April, 1564, may be pardoned for not having arrived yet at euch elucidation; but he does excellently towards perpetuating the etory of a dragon conflict, as well ,as illustrating the hold this popular worthy retained upon Elizabethan England. " Saint George that swinged the dragon, and «'<-r einoe Sits on his horseback at mine hostesk'e door, Teach va tome fence!" mocks tho Bastard Faulconbridge, alluding to the frcjuei'.cy of his appearance on the inn-signs of the day. "Borfires in France forthwith I am to make, To \i( J rp our great Saint George's feast withal," cava the Duke of Bedford, getting out to war, presumably eoino short time before the illfli-trious 23rd, proclaimed as a holiday throughout England since 1222, when Richnrd the Lion-Hearted discard.-3 Edward tint Coaftwor to place himself and his kingdom uiider this more manful, if oriental, Saint. In "Richard lU.", whi!e the avonger on the other side adapts iw the occasion the English war-cry, "God and Saint George! Richmond and Victory!"

Richard himself makes a. neat confusion of '•■ champion and flock destroyer— " Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint Gcorgo, Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!" Th« Lancaster and York plays, nil through, emphasise ih* repeated note of civil war, by St. George's interference being claimei ou either side — "Then strike up drams, God and Saint George for us!" answering, "For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!" In the non-historical plays, the English Saint naturally appears less often, but Petruchio is ungallantly foreworn to Katharine. " Now by Saint George, I am too young for you." And in "Love's Labour Lost," when tin Court wits mock Holofenws's hatch** a.untenauoe, as " A death's head in a ring,' "The face of an old Roman coin, scare* seen," etc., Biron's suggestion "St. Genre's half-cheek in a brooch," with Dumuin's following, "Ay, and in a brooch of lead," recalls a fashion of honouring ths patron first borrowed from France, who.** Louis XL. as all readers of Scott know, wore a hat, " the band of which wsa garnished with at least a dozen of little r.ahry figures of saints stamped in lead." When Vassili VereshThe Personality chajin left Moscow for of Japan in. August last Vereshchagin. he had as a feliow passenger on the Siberian railway a young New Zealander, Mr W. Downie Stewart, of Dunedin. ;Mr Stewart now contributes to the "Otago Daily Times" some reminiscences of the "most interesting man he ever met." In appearance Vereshchagin was tall and of soldierly bearing, with clean-cut aristocratic features and a' full grey beard. Ou his breast ho wore the cross of St. George, the highest military distinction in Russia, and "even in crowded thoroughfares everyone turned to look twice at his striking figure, while he, on his part, was apparently quite unconscious of the attention he. attracted." In the course of a strenuous life—he was an officer of Cossacks in the Rueso-Turkish war—he had met men in the front rant . in war, art, journalism, and politics, end - he wiled away tho weary days of the Siberian journey with and often eloquent anecdotes of King Edward, the Gar, the Kaiser, Bismarck, Roosevelt, Ediaon, Dutnoe, and dosene of otlters. For tha English Vereshchagin had the greatest admiration ; but he considered them too proud. '"They are more proud even than the Turks." "If I buy anything," he said v again, "I a?k if it is made in England. If it is, that is enough. I know that the workmanship will be good and durable." The deceased painter reseated the foreign appreciation of his countrymen's methods. The misunderstanding arose, he said, from failure to recognise that Russia was still a young nation. "You erpecfc * morality from Russia," he expressed it, "equal to civilisations older by centuries." The : noble character of the great painter was equally evident in his military and his private life. Mr Stewart tells how at Vladivostok, ■■when strolling through the Chine** market, they saw a. despised Chinese coolie trying to lift a bundle of firewood, to his , back. Vereshchagin instantly went to his help, untied and rearranged the bundle in., portable form and lifted it into positioa in the most.unassuming manner. Danger had no terrors for him. In the Turkish ■war an officer tried to <£eter him from volunteering for a dangerous venture by saying "Russia has many hundreds of officers like mc, but not two painters like you." Nor was be to be deterred from witnessing a> naval action from the most dangerous view point', and the world it decidedly the poorer that the hand of Vereshchagin will never commit to canvas "The Horrors €>t War," which he iras in the feet of sketching as he went down in the ill-fated battleship.