the ancient unity of the State and God.
It carried with it not merely the doom of the Roman Empire, but of the
whole fabric of the ancient relations of State and Individual. Yet
Sophocles felt the injustice of this justice four centuries before, as
strongly as Tertullian, the Marat of dying Rome, felt it two centuries
after that command was uttered.

Such then is the character of the ideal. And in the resolution as a
people, for the furtherance of its great ends, to do all, to suffer
all, as Rome resolved, lies what may be described as the destiny of
Imperial Britain. None more impressive, none loftier has ever arisen
within the consciousness of a people. And to England through all her
territories and seas the moment for that resolution is now. If ever
there came to any city, race, or nation, clear and high through the
twilight spaces, across the abysses where the stars wander, the call of
its fate, it is NOW! There is an Arab fable of the white steed of
Destiny, with the thunder mane and the hoofs of lightning, that to
every man, as to every people, comes _once_. Glory to that man, to
that race, who dares to mount it! And that steed, is it not nearing
England now? Hark! the ringing of its hoofs is borne to our ears on
the blast!

Temptations to fly from this decision, to shrink from the great
resolve, to temporize, to waver, have at such moments ever presented
themselves to men and to nations. Even now they present themselves,
manifold, subtly disguised, insidiously persuasive, as exhortations to
humility, for instance, as appeals to the deference due to the opinion
of other States. But in the faith, the undying faith, that it, and it
alone, can perform the fate-appointed task, dwells the virtue of every
imperial race that History knows. How shall any empire, any state,
conscious of its destiny, imitate the self-effacement prescribed to the
individual--"In honour preferring one another"? This in an imperial
State were the premonition of decay, the presage of death.

But there is one great pledge, a solemn warrant of her resolve to
swerve not, to blench not, which England has already offered. That
pledge is Elandslaagte, it is Enslin, the Modder, and the bloody agony
of Magersfontein. For it grows ever clearer as month succeeds month
that it is by the invincible force of this ideal, this of Imperial
Britain, that we have waged this war and fought these battles in South
Africa. If it be not for this c