"'And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my father unto thee.
"'And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken unto him; for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers.'
"The man read the whole story until it was ended. Then he closed the book, and he said, 'My friends, Naboth has a vineyard in this land; and in it there is much gold; and Ahab has desired to have it that the wealth may be his.'
"And he put the old book aside, and he took up another which was written yesterday. And the men and women whispered one to another, even in the church, 'Is not that the Blue Book Report of the Select Committee of the Cape Parliament on the Jameson raid?'
"And the man said, 'Friends, the first story I have read you is one of the oldest stories of the world: the story I am about to read you is one of the newest. Truth is not more truth because it is three thousand years old, nor is it less truth because it is of yesterday. All books which throw light on truth are God's books, therefore I shall read to you from the pages before me. Shall the story of Ahab king of Samaria profit us when we know not the story of the Ahabs of our day; and the Naboths of our land be stoned while we sit at east?' And he read to them portions of that book. And certain rich men and women rose up and went out even while he spoke, and his wife also went out.
"And when the service was ended and the man returned to his home, his wife came to him weeping; and she said, 'Did you see how some of the most wealthy and important people got up and went out this morning? Why did you preach such a sermon, when we were just going to have the new wing added to our house, and you thought they were going to raise your salary? You have not a single Boer in your congregation! Why need you say the Chartered Company raid on Johannesburg was wrong?'
"He said, 'My wife, if I believe that certain men whom we have raised on high, and to whom we have given power, have done a cowardly wrong, shall I not say it?'
"And she said, 'Yes, and only a little while ago, when Rhodes was licking the dust off the Boers' feet that he might keep them from suspecting while he got ready this affair, then you attacked both Rhodes and the Bond (The Afrikander Bond, the organised Dutch political party, through whom Mr. Rhodes worked, and by whom he was backed.) for trying to pass a Bill for flogging the niggers, and we lost fifty pounds we might have got for the church?' And he said, 'My wife, cannot God be worshipped as well under the dome of the heaven He made as in a golden palace? Shall a man keep silence, when he sees oppression, to earn money for God? If I have defended the black man when I believed him to be wronged, shall I not also defend the white man, my flesh-brother? Shall we speak when one man is wronged and not when it is another?'
"And she said, 'Yes, but you have your family and yourself to think of!
Why are you always in opposition to the people who could do something for us? You are only loved by the poor. If it is necessary for you to attack some one, why don't you attack the Jews for killing Christ, or Herod, or Pontius Pilate; why don't you leave alone the men who are in power today, and who with their money can crush you!'
"And he said, 'Oh my wife, those Jews, and Herod, and Pontius Pilate are long dead. If I should preach of them now, would it help them? Would it save one living thing from their clutches? The past is dead, it lives only for us to learn from. The present, the present only, is ours to work in, and the future ours to create. Is all the gold of Johannesburg or are all the diamonds in Kimberley worth, that one Christian man should fall by the hand of his fellows--aye, or one heathen brother?'
"And she answered, 'Oh, that is all very well. If you were a really eloquent preacher, and could draw hundreds of men about you, and in time form a great party with you at its head, I shouldn't mind what you said.
But you, with your little figure and your little voice, who will ever follow you? You will be left all alone; that is all the good that will ever come to you through it.'
"And he said, 'Oh my wife, have I not waited and watched and hoped that they who are nobler and stronger than I, all over this land, would lift up their voices and speak--and there is only a deadly silence? Here and there one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the hand; one says, 'My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud'; and another says, 'I have a promise of land'; and another, 'I am socially intimate with these men, and should lose my social standing if I let my voice be heard.'
Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which we had hoped would be free and strong among the peoples of earth, is rotten and honeycombed with the tyranny of gold! We who had hoped to stand first in the Anglo-Saxon sisterhood for justice and freedom, are not even fit to stand last. Do I not know only too bitterly how weak is my voice; and that that which I can do is as nothing: but shall I remain silent? Shall the glow-worm refuse to give its light, because it is not a star set up on high; shall the broken stick refuse to burn and warm one frozen man's hands, because it is not a beacon-light flaming across the earth? Ever a voice is behind my shoulder, that whispers to me--'Why break your head against a stone wall?
Leave this work to the greater and larger men of your people; they who will do it better than you can do it! Why break your heart when life could be so fair to you?' But, oh my wife, the strong men are silent! and shall I not speak, though I know my power is as nothing?'
"He laid his head upon his hands.
