at ther point of ther baynit, for ther ramparts are guarded ’nd ther sentries never sleep.  When ther bugles sound ther larst reville you will ever ’ear, ’nd ther colonel, whose name is Death, gives the order ter march, you’ll have nothink to fear abart, if yer bandoliers are full o’ faith ’nd yer rifles are sighted with good works.  Yer uniforms may be ragged, and you may not even have a corporal’s stripe to show; but if yer can pass ther sentries fearlessly, you’ll find a general’s commission waitin’ for yer just inside ther gate.  But yer earn’t fool with my General.  Remember this:  ther password is, ‘Repentance,’ ’nd nothink else will do.  The sentry on duty will see you comin’ and will challenge you.  ‘Who goes there?’ ‘Friend!’ ’Advance, friend, ‘nd give ther counter-sign!’ If you say, ‘Good works,’ you’ll find ’is baynit up against yer chest.  If yer say you forgot to get it, you’ll be in ther clink in ‘ell in ther twinklin’ of an eye; but if yer say, loud ’nd clear, ‘Repentance,’ ’e will lower ’is baynit ’nd say, ’Pass, friend.  All’s well!’”

PRESIDENT STEYN.

Out on the veldt, far from the wife and home he loves so well, he stands, our country’s bold, unyielding foe.  And even as he stands he knows that the finger of Fate has written his own and his country’s doom in letters large and deep on the walls of time.  Yet, with unblenching brow, he waits the falling of the thunderbolt, a calm, grand figure, fit to live in history’s pages when every memory of meaner men has passed into oblivion, M.T.  Steyn, President of the shattered Free State of South Africa.  Around this man the human jackals howl to try with lying lips to foul his memory.  Yet, as a rock, age after age, throws back with contemptuous strength the waves that break against its base, so every action of his manly life gives the lie to tales which cowards tell.

He is our foe, no stabber in the dark, moving with stealthy steps amidst professions of pretended peace, but in the open, where the gaze of God and man can rest upon him, he stands, defiant, though undone.  He staked his country’s freedom, his earthly happiness, and his high position in the great game of war; staked all that mortal man holds dear; staked it for what?  For love of gain!  May he who spawned that lie to stir our people’s hearts to boundless wrath against this falling man live to repent in sackcloth and in tears the evil deed so done. . . .  Staked it for what?  To feed his own ambition!  I tell you no; the undercurrent which brought forth the deed sprang from a nobler and a higher source.  His country stood pledged in time of peace to help in time of war a sister State, and when the bond fell due he honoured it, though none knew better than this noble man that when he loosed the dogs of war he crossed a lion’s path.