Note Back to Main Text — Chapter VIII

"The struggle of now nearly a century," he writes in his appeal to his brother Afrikanders, "hastens to an end; we are approaching the last act in that great drama which is so momentous for all South Africa.... The questions which present themselves for solution in the approaching conflict have their origin deep in the history of the past.... By its light we are more clearly enabled to comprehend the truth to which our people appeal as a final justification for embarking on the war now so close at hand.... May the hope which glowed in our hearts during 1880, and which buoyed us up during that struggle, burn on steadily! May it prove a beacon of light in our path, invincibly moving onwards through blood and through tears, until it leads us to a real union of South Africa.... Whether the result be victory or death, Liberty will assuredly rise on South Africa ... just as freedom dawned over the United States of America a little more than a century ago. Then from Zambesi to Simon's Town it will be Africa for the Afrikander."[207]