eformed Church. A
Boer among Boers. He was never told why he was arrested by his brother
Boers, and though kept under lock and key for months, he was never
introduced to judge or jury. An advocate of peace, he was suspected of
British leanings, and so almost before the war commenced rough hands
were laid upon him. There was in the Transvaal a reign of terror.
Secret service men were everywhere, and no one's reputation was safe,
no one's position secure. In this land of newly-discovered gold men
were driven to discover that the most golden thing of all was discreet
silence on the part of those who differed from "the powers that be."
So he who simply sought to avert war was suspected of British
sympathies, and to his unutterable surprise presently found himself
the fellow prisoner of many a still more unfortunate British officer.

Of those officers, their character and intellectual attainments, he
speaks in terms of highest praise. Their enforced leisure they
devoted to various artistic and intellectual pursuits, and I have
myself seen an admirably elaborate and accurate map of the Republics,
covering the whole of a large classroom wall, drawn presumably from
joint memory by these officers, who by its aid were able to trace the
progress of the war as tidings filtered through to them by an
ingenious system of signalling practised by sympathetic friends
outside.

By those same officers this Dutchman was invited to become their
unofficial chaplain, and he writes of the devotional services
consequently arranged as among the chief delights of his life, the
favourite hymn he says being the following:--

Holy Father, in Thy mercy
Hear our anxious prayer.
Keep our loved ones, now far absent,
'Neath Thy care.

Jesus, Saviour, let Thy presence
Be their light and pride.
Keep, Oh keep them, in their weakness,
Near Thy side.

Holy Spirit, let Thy teaching
Sanctify their life.
Send Thy grace that they may conquer
In all strife.

It was to this much respected and much reviled predikant a Pretorian
high official said: "We were determined to let it drift to a rupture
with England, for then our dream would be realised of a Republic
reaching to Table Mountain"; but surely such a song and such a scene
in the State's Model School was a thing of which no man dreamed!

[Sidenote: _The Water