THE REBEL AND THE PSALMIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 17 April 1901, Page 28

THE REBEL AND THE PSALMIST.

IX CHURCH WITH THE BOERS. I have been to churcli — to a church in a little dorp on the Port Elizabeth Graaff Reinet line, a whitewashed, °quaie cut kirk, and ugly. A \illage wheie a handful of khaki-clad militiamen play at guarding a bridge and the stones of Tran»\ aal atiocities are believed as the Gospel. - What I heard there can be heard in any Dutch Reformed church in South Africa — 111 Graaff Reinet, m Uitenhage, in Somerset East, even, it is whispered, in effect in Capetown. 'Hie dream of a United Afrikander nation is dying hard The Dutch colonists are only now gra c p ing the significance of their shadowy ideal, and the -\ague. shapeless \ I*loll of a separate national life lias, in the moment of the realisation of its hopelessness, assumed a ct-r tain tangibility Nothing is more patent to the mo=t ca?ual observer than the fact that it 1^ only during the past two months that the leaders of the "New National" movement in the Cape Colony have seen the impossibility of the fulfilment of their drepm. At the beginning of the Mar a general rising throughout ihe colony would have put altogether a different complexion upon matters, but the malcontents were confident of the succeps of the Republican forces and, at the worst, of European intervention, and so they played that waiting game which bo happily fits the back veidt indolent. IN THE HOUSE OF THE CHOSES". Now it is that, with all the impotent rage of strong men caught nappuig, platform, pulpit, and press thunder forth denunciation of the conqueror. Now it is that every effort that leaders and interested organisers can nut forth, every malignant lie oalcuJatedto fire the blcod of the unlearned and intensify the already exist-ag hatred, is being employed to the undoing of the English. Curious to see for myself what manner of thing a political sermon is, I attended an evening service not far from Port Elizabeth. The church, grim and bleak, was half filled. There was no great display of colour, no attempt at anything startling in the shape of dress. Black was the hue, and homemade severity the cut. The worshippers sat bolt upright in their uncomfortable pews, and the boct-squeak of the late comer and the occasional sniff or apologetic cough were the only sounds that broke the silence. There were elderly men in irreproachable broadcloth, with sombre-banded hats There were young men greatly daring in fanciful suits, but lacking originality in cravat?. Stout Boer women in brocaded silt, and plump Dutch girh with expressionless eyes. T'ncy came in, keeping step t o the monotonous clang of the church bell, in twos,, singlr, in parties, and i-n families, recognising with a glance such of their friends as were already seated. Tho bell stopped, and a little harmonium droningly asserted it«elf. And then, accoropanipd by one of his deacons, the predikp'nt himself entered and ascended the pulpit. The organ wailed itself to sleep, and the predikant adjusted his glasses. NO NAMES. There were spirit and life in the hymn?, many of which were sung without as much as a glance at tl-e book, for the rnncici tion had beguiled many a long evening on lonely farms and isolated homusieau- Hiipiig them o\er. net so much from any great religious zeal or piety as from that desire to kill time, which moves the comict to master the contents of his Prayer Book. Then there were lessons and prayer^, chapters from the Old Testament of people in bondage and their delivery, prayers that this trouble which is in the land may pass, that the heart of the oppressor might he softened, that the vengeance of the Lord might descend and smite the des'.royer, that Israel be delivered from the hands of its enemies, that the Philistines might be swept into the sea — yea, even as the wind sweeps the locust. The predikant prayed with fervour — with head uplifted, with hands clasping and unclasping m agony of ppirit. In^ his prayers he did not refer by rame to tiie Boer Republics ; he simply anked for Dh me intervention for the Lord's chosen. He did not speak of England: he said Philistiues ar d Amelekites. He did not refer directly to Sir Alfred Milner nor to Mr Chamberlain, but with all the passion he could command he called for vengeance on the false couii&ellors who had initiated the persecution of ths people of the land. He prayed, and the 1 congregation punctuated his prayers with deep sighs and " amens," and I, a Philistine in the House of the Chosen, ?at and wondered why this fervour, this undoubted earnestneas, had not been directed towards Patil Kruger in Ihe days when a word from the Dutch churches in South Africa would have prevented the war. THE PULriT SLANDERER. Then came the sermon. No particular verse of the Scriptures was taken — the text was a Psahvu in the whole. There was no '"secondly" and very little "'lastly." Verse by verse the Pslamist's song was taken to illustrate the depra\itj r of the British. Each injustice to Israel had a parellel to-day. Ecch passionate appeal of David had application to the case of Chamberlain's victims in the north. It was the Fourteenth. Psalm that he took as a subject. The fool had said in his heart that the cause of -the burgher was a lo=t cai'se ; that the Lord was not behind His people; that the accur.=ed tyranny of tlie oppressor should ptewul And what of these opprepsois'r Tliete people who tried to hide themselves from thp rifles of the burghers by arraying thenbodies in mud-coloured cloth? The congregation nnu'uuued a sympathetic appreciation of this sarcasm. What of the=e men? Truly, the Psalmist said, they wero corrupt they had done .abominable thing=, there i> not one who had done good ; no, nol one. What of the dishonoured homeb and the blackened walls of the cnoe prosp< rous farmhouse? What of '' — again that awful story — that Horror, made doubly authentic by reason of the place of delivery. He told the story, the bald, crude talc, carrying, to a white Englishman, it own refutation in every syllable, and the congregation held its breath. He told the story, so that a man seated in the next pew to myself half rose from his i-eat, and, like a man who tries to shout in a dream and finds that he can but whisper, muttered : '" There is time yet, there is time." So that a girl rose from her seat, tittering and whimpering, and was led out. " FRIENDS ! " And the sermon went on. The Lord had looked down upon the Oppressor, and had visite-d liiift with afflietios— with digasieg 00.

di-dstor. Colonso. Stormberg, Magersfontoin had come hko a thunderbolt upon thp world. It wai the Dnmo warning to turn from tha path of oppies^ion, to open the eye- of a blind nation. And how had the warning been taken ' Had the nation heeded the voice 1 ' No. It had prosecuted its unrighteous designs, 1U unholy object. It had gone from worse to norsp; it had become filthy. Had they no knowledge, these iniquitous people, who had brought war and desolation to the country, whose path had been marked! by much blood and burning? These people, who are dead to all dictates of conscience, to all honour and pity? Did they not realise that at the eleserth hour the Lord would' pave His people? Oh that the salvation of Israel would come to Zion ' Did his brethren under'tand what that passage meant? The Predikant paused and leant forward over the pulpit, and there was a silence-. Did they understand that the people of tbe» captivity looked to their own kindred for deliverance from their bondage? Another pause, and the congregation, shifted uneasily in their seats. Thus abruptly the sermon ended, and _th& people dispersed, some walking, some riding, some driving. Group by group they scattered, parting- with limp shakes of great horny hand*— the elder men in gloomy silence, the younger men with mutterings of thieats and hints, of startling things to I passed down towards fie little village that staggers from the church at one end to the naked veldt at the other, parsed by the little camp, answering the sentry's challenge. There was a rattle of wheels behind me. It was the Prrdikant driving back with cne of his flock. I ttood on one side to allow tl'em to pacs. As the trap neared the little io£.d.sido camp a bayonet glittered in ihe moonlight, and the horses were pulled up sharp. "Halt! Who goes there?"' Back came the answer, prompt, and cloar, and glib — " Friends ! " — Edgar "Wallace, in the Daily Mail.