The war: a voice from South Africa : a message to the Christian people of Great Britain Author(s): Schreiner, Olive Source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, (1900) Published by: The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60231872 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 12:14 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Digitization of this work funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme. The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library and are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 194.29.185.25 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:14:36 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Transcript
The war: a voice from South Africa : a message to the Christian people of Great BritainAuthor(s): Schreiner, OliveSource: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, (1900)Published by: The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60231872 .
Accessed: 15/06/2014 12:14
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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Digitization of this work funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme.
The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library and are collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection.
http://www.jstor.org
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Reprinted {by permission) from " The Methodist Times."
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A Message to the Christian People
of Great Britain,
From Mrs. LEWIS, Sister of Mr. Schreiner, the Prime Minister of Cape Colony.
Dear Fellow Christians,—• I am constrained by an overwhelming sense of God's will
to send out this message at this crisis. An awful war is upon us in this country; a war in which,
on either side, our nearest and dearest may fall. There is scarcely a household in the Cape Colony which has not some of its beloved ones in imminent danger of death, not only in the colonial forces, which, in Natal and elsewhere, are supporting the Imperial Government, but in still larger numbers among the burghers of the Republics now engaged in the war with Great Britain.
Every bullet sent on its death mission may be bringing darkness not only to homes in the Republics, but equally to tne colonial homes of her Majesty's loyal subjects. There surely never was a war in which more conflict of feeling was awakened, more bewildering anguish caused, than this which is now rending the hearts and souls of thousands, who, like the writer, are facing death to beloved ones, or what is even more bitter than death, family and heart disunions and separations, which may extend into and darken all the future of life. If ever there was need to get beyond the human, to reach out above the earth—to where " there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the City of God," it is in this terrible crisis.
It is because I fear that a considerable section of the Christian world of England, because of its tender sympathy with present suffering and its yearning after a present peace, is being led by writers who have appealed only to these sentiments into an attitude with regard to this war which is out of harmony with the Divine purpose at this time, that I am driven to write this appeal.
In the name of the Lord Jesus, and for His dear sake, I appeal to the Christian people of England to suspend the judgment they have been led to form on the question of the war in which Great Britain is now engaged. If ever there was a war for the Lord of Hosts, if ever there was a war for truth and right, for the putting down of oppression and wrong, for the deliverance of a people powerless to deliver themselves, whose wrongs have cried up to heaven until the Lord has come down to deliver them, this is that war.
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It is not the grievances of the Uitlanders, though they have '" been very real, and have called for justice; it is not what British subjects have had to suffer of indignities and wrongs, though these have been numerous under recent Transvaal Administration; it is not the insult to England's power and prestige shown by the refusal to concede her moderate demands for justice to be done to her subjects, followed by the un- ,t paralleled act of defiance contained in the Transvaal War ^ Ultimatum, it is not these things, however they may justly stir the national heart, which call upon us as Christians to bring the united force of God's people, by the power of believing prayer, to bear upon this war question. These, indeed, are the apparent causes which have led the British nation to unite to wage this war; but behind that nation, and behind these causes, is the moving power of the Omnipotent.
These more lecent wrongs and injustices done to compara¬ tively a small number of British subjects, the foolhardy blindness which prevented the Tiansvaal authorities from seeing that the safety, as well as the very existence, of the Republics depended on their granting the just concessions demanded of them, above all the suicidal acts which made them, while peaceful negotia¬ tions were still pending, rush into the war and commence their work of destruction within the borders of the colony which — had been so neutral as to allow supplies of ammunition to go through to them—all these things, which have brought about the war now being waged, are the wrongs which the God of nations has overruled to bring to pass that uniting of all V"U political sections of the British nation in such a way that its vast resources—both the wealth of the nation and the flower of its army—are willingly yielded up to wage this war, its forces becoming, in the hand of " the Lord of Hosts," His sword, His great and strong sword, by which He will smite oppression and bring deliverance to those powerless to deliver themselves, thereby saving from tyranny and destruction whole nations of peoples now existing a?id yet to exist in the future history of this continent.
Let no Christian heart think that the immediate events which have led up to this war are the chief cause why the life- blood of the British Empire is being poured out to-day. No! British soldiers are dying on African soil to-day to put an end to
A Condition of Atrocious Wrong
—a wrong continued throughout generations, and which, apparently, nothing but this sacrifice of life could right. Burghers of the Republics and colonists together, the innocent with the guilty, are to-day expiating crimes which, unavenged for long years have sent up their cry into the ear of Eternal Justice.
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Through weary periods of years generations of human beings have groaned in this land under wrongs, oppressions, and tyrannies, too widespread, too multiplied, too various to be enumerated within the limits of this paper.
For over two hundred years the progenitors of the Transvaal Republic and their descendants have crushed, maltreated, and, as far as they had power to do so, robbed of all rights belonging to them as fellow human beings the coloured peoples of this land. Nor are the Cape colonists, who will suffer almost equally with the Republicans before this war is over, free from blood guiltiness in this matter; though, under the British flag, their legislative wrongs, in the direction of native oppression, have perforce been far less heinous than those perpetrated in the .Republics, who now in their blindness and the Pharaoh-like hardness of heart of their leaders, have thrown down the gauntlet of war before Great Britain.
Under Transvaal rule a ceaseless committal of crimes, legis¬ lative, social, and individual, have been perpetrated upon the helpless natives both within and beyond the borders of the Republic, for whom it has seemed till now there was no possible deliverance. Powerless to right themselves, with no human arm to look to for succour, the mute appeal of their helpless sufferings has gone up before God, the God of eternal justice. The crimes which have cried unredressed to heaven from the length and breadth of this land for over two hundred years, but more particularly from that part known as the Transvaal territory, defy description; and it has seemed as though redress would never come, as though no deliverance were possible. To justice-loving souls who have known of these wrongs it has been like some horrible nightmare that in the nineteenth century, within the limits of a country over part of which there waves the British flag, political and social oppression by one race over another was being so grossly practised, to know that on every side individual brutalities were being committed on defenceless victims, and that, not by Arab slave-driver or Moslem oppressors, but by a professedly Christian and highly- religious people, who, with the Bible in their hands and loud professions of faith and prayers, were practising barbarities, in peace as well as war, which pttt to shame the records of what the savages of this land have inflicted, even in war time. upo?i white races. Oh it has been horrible beyond words—horrible Wrong going on which no one seemed to realise save the
Helpless Victims of those Wrongs,
whose groanings have fallen deaf on human ears, except on those of a few helpless watchers of these wrongs, whose eyes God had opened whose ears He had unstopped, whose souls He had awakened to realise the ghastly condition of things, but who seemed as powerless to gain redress as were the victims themselves.
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But, blessed be God, it has not been in vain that some of the Lord's own have kept watch night and day; that, through an agony so deep that there have been moments when life and reason have seemed at stake, they have cried without ceasing— "How long, O Lord? How long? Arise, O Lord, come in Thy mighty power! Make bare Thy mighty arm in the sight of all nations O Lord, come down as of old, and deliver the oppressed of our land whose groans go up before Thee Hear the cry of the afflicted, the moan of the down-trodden and crushed victims of the white man's power! Wilt Thou not work deliverance, Lord Is there no human instrument which Thou canst bid go forth to do Thy will and make to cease the foul evils, this festering wrong in our land?—0, God of nations, we cry to Thee Our eyes look unto Thee, O Lord Arise! 0 God, arise! "
Thus through long years has the cry of agony at the helpless witnessing of hopeless suffering been wrung from strained hearts and lives, powerless to do anything but pray. ' And, blessed be God, the God and Father of all the peoples upon earth, " His ear was not deaf that it could not hear, nor was His hand shortened that it could not save."
Though He delayed long in mercy to the wrong-doers to give opportunity of amendment, He speaks at last. " I have seen, 1 have seen the affliction of the people, and have come down to deliver." And now, now that our God has arisen, now that the fearful wrongs of past generations are to be righted, now that the Lord of Hosts has sent forth, as His avenging instruments, our British Army, to right the wrongs that have cried up before Him for over two hundred years, to fight the battles not of British against Boer, not of the Uitlanders against Transvaal oppression, as it appears to human sight, but to fight for the God of nations on behalf of the myriad lives, of the numberless nations with which the interior of Africa is teeming, and which only by the success of our British arms can gain through all the future years opportunities to develop as God would have them develop and grow into free, enlightened peoples to His glory, and the blessing of the human race, and the heart satisfaction of Him who died that they might live.
What, then, should be the attitude of God's people at this crisis Is it not an awful anomaly to think of any of " the Lord's Own "
withstanding His gracious purposes Failing to recognise His hand, failing to bless His delivering, saving grace, failing to adore Him 'for having seen fit to let the British nation, with all its faults, still be His sword to put right these terrible evils which have cursed the past history of this land, and menaced all of its future glorious possibilities. If these evils could have been averted in any other way, would not the God who rejoiced to spare Nineveh, because of the more than six- score thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left, and also the " much cattle," have worked to
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right these wrongs without this terrible scourge of war, in which the innocent must suffer with the guilty Surely yes we cannot doubt it. But now—now that, as in the case of Pharaoh of old, the oppressing power would accept no warning, and has
Rushed on to this Destruction,
\ should not God's children be at one with Him in the purposes for which He is permitting this suffering Should we not, as His own, while mourning over the individual anguish and sorrow inflicted, and praying in all tender love for each separate soul and life that is being sacrificed on either side in this war, still be found ever constant in upholding by faithful prayer the militant forces which God is using to overthrow oppression and wrong, and to bring in that justice and right, without which there is no true peace? Surely it is no slight matter whether the people of God are, or are not, at one with His mind and will on so great a question as this ?—If God be working His eternal purposes of blessing by the contest now engaging a large portion of the British Army, then these soldiers are as truly battling for the Lord of Hosts, though they may in no way realise it, as did the army of old, when on that lonely mountain top the three men, who truly turned the tide of battle, waited upon the Lord.
O beloved fellow Christians, there are some in this land upon whose souls is laid the weight of this conflict, who night and day are ceaselessly lifting up in their arms of faith before God the hosts who are battling with, it may be, little or no sense of the higher issues at stake in their victories, but who, we know, are surely contending that the forces of evil should not prevail; night and day the spirit witnesseth that we should plead on and bring the power of believing prayer to the aid of those brave sons of Old England who, at the call of national duty (which to most of them is possibly their highest aim), are willingly yielding up their lives, shedding their blood on African plains, and thereby working out God's purposes for the emancipation of the oppressed people of this land.
Fellow-Christians, will any of you withhold from us the upholding strength of your prayers By day and night this prayer is given to us, " God speed the British arms." We dare not desist thus to plead, because God has shown us that the whole future history of South Africa and of its countless tribes depends on the issues of this war.
We willingly yield up our beloved, our hearts' dear ones, who may fall in these battles on either side;
We Willingly Accept the, Sufferings and losses that are falling upon our homes and personal lives in many bitter ways, because we know the spread of Christ's Kingdom, and the lifting up into true advancement of His inheritance, the future moral and national emancipation of whole
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races of human beings is at stake; and so, while our hearts bleed and our homes are laid waste, we still praise the Lord who' has arisen to purify this land, and by His grace we are given to bear up ceaselessly in prayer the military forces that are carrying out these purposes of blessing. And shall the weary, heart- riven watchers on the mountain peaks of faith and prayer here be denied the support of any fellow Christian in the country from which this army has been sent out? Oh, it is terrible that, in any degree, that support should be withheld, that while the British nation, as a whole, has been made willing in this day of God's power to face any sacrifice to carry out this campaign, the few who are opposing the means by which alone the national crimes of South Africa can be expiated, and the continuance of them arrested, should be found amongst the fellow-Christians whose prayers we are needing to help to bring victory to the cause of right and truth.
When our arms of Faith and Prayer grow weak, and the pain, the dumb, dead pain at our hearts when our own have to die, brings moments of bewildering weakness over us, then to learn that fellow Christians in England are doubting the righteousness of this war, to know that there are many who are not pleading, as we dare not but plead in spite of all our pain, for the blessing of God on the arms of Great Britain, oh! that is hardest of all to bear.
Dear fellow Christians, into whose hands this message comes, will you go into your inner chambers, put away from you all preconceived notions, and wait upon God? Ask Him to make clear to your soul His mind and will upon this question. Let Him speak. Die to all human voices, however loved or trusted they have been, or hitherto rightly followed. Listen only for God's voice. Keep still before Him till He speaks Himself to your souls.
If you will do this we know that from thousands of hearts who have hitherto withheld the power of their prayers from the armies who, at God's appointment, have been sent forth from our British Isles and elsewhere to work His will, there shall go up such a mighty force of believing prayer that our trembling hands shall be upheld here, and the material forces battling on the side of God and right shall prevail in a way that they cannot while divisions exist among the spiritual forces of God.
God, even our God, bless this message to work His will.
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