Their devotion to the faith in which they believe has been a special target for this ridicule, although I never saw the time when they made that devotion obnoxious to even the lowest unbeliever. They worship in their own way, believe in their own creed, which is very like that of the great majority of the people of the United States. When I listened to the Dutch pastor preach that last sermon before the British entered Pretoria, I heard nothing that could offend any one; and yet, less than two weeks later, at my own table, in the presence of half a dozen British officers, an English chaplain told us as a great joke, over his brandy and soda, that he had heard of a sermon that was preached exhorting the Boers to fight, and that he had informed the provost marshal and had the Dutch pastor thrown into jail. After a moment’s pause he added, “I occupied his pulpit myself last Sunday.”
“Well,” said one of the British officers, “that is a method of getting a pulpit that I never heard of before.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.