I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have lived and
laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no costs? Would
the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be accomplished, if
men counted the cost and created for their own lives alone? And no man
liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. You cannot tell me not to
love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice within me, I know not
what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for your own children.' When in
the circle of my own small life all is dark, and I despair, hope springs up
in me when I remember that something nobler and fairer may spring up in the
spot where I now stand.'

"And she said, 'You want to put everyone against us! The other women will
not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor people.
Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know you would
be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to niggers. If
they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to help white men. You
will never be on the side of the people who can do anything for us! You
know the offer we had from--'

"And he said, 'Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the Turk
to me; am I responsible for their action? It is my own nation, mine, which
I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me. I would that
wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples of earth
might gather under it, saying, 'Under this banner is freedom and justice
which knows no race or colour.' I wish that on our banner were blazoned in
large letters "Justice and Mercy", and that in every new land which our
feet touch, every son among us might see ever blazoned above his head that
banner, and below it the great order:--"By this sign, Conquer!"--and that
the pirate flag which some men now wave in its place, may be torn down and
furled for ever! Shall I condone the action of some, simply because they