not speak, though I know my power is as nothing?'

"He laid his head upon his hands.

"And she said, 'I cannot understand you. When I come home and tell you
that this man drinks, or that that woman has got into trouble, you always
answer me, 'Wife, what business is it of ours if so be that we cannot help
them?' A little innocent gossip offends you; and you go to visit people
and treat them as your friends, into whose house I would not go. Yet when
the richest and strongest men in the land, who could crush you with their
money, as a boy crushes a fly between his finger and thumb, take a certain
course, you stand and oppose them.'

"And he said, 'My wife, with the sins of the private man, what have I to
do, if so be I have not led him into them? Am I guilty? I have enough to
do looking after my own sins. The sin that a man sins against himself is
his alone, not mine; the sin that a man sins against his fellows is his and
theirs, not mine: but the sins that a man sins, in that he is taken up by
the hands of a people and set up on high, and whose hand they have armed
with their sword, whose power to strike is their power--his sins are
theirs; there is no man so small in the whole nation that he dares say, 'I
have no responsibility for this man's action.' We armed him, we raised
him, we strengthened him, and the evil he accomplishes is more ours than
his. If this man's end in South Africa should be accomplished, and the day
should come when, from the Zambezi to the sea, white man should fly at
white man's throat, and every man's heart burn with bitterness against his
fellow, and the land be bathed with blood as rain--shall I then dare to
pray, who have now feared to speak? Do not think I wish for punishment
upon these men. Let them take the millions they have wrung out of this
land, and go to the lands of their birth, and live in wealth, luxury, and