The burghers know their bibles as well as the officers, can pray as well and preach as well; then why should their officers keep trying to drive more bible into the burghers? When the officers tell them that God has ordained that all men shall be free, and that all burghers who submit to live as slaves to an English Sovereign can never hope to pass St. Peter and enter the gates of heaven, they have said enough on the bible question. In contending with such an unscrupulous and God-banished government as the British, they must remember that their rifles and artillery must take first place. The Boers are by nature intensely humane and religious, and command the respect and admiration of all who know them, but they must remember that when at war with the English, they are fighting a lot of savages, and that by way of retaliation they must play the savage, too. The civilized christian preaches of humane war, but has any one ever taken part in or witnessed a humane war, or can any one mention a humane war since the world was created? When two civilized nations go to war, each strains every nerve to mow the other down, to cut his throat, to mutilate and kill him,--by fair means or foul,--and when the battle is lost and won, they commiserate and sympathize with them, and grieve to see so many hundreds of their fellowmen writhing in agony on the battlefield. This is what they call humane war in modern times. If the greedy, ambitious and unscrupulous politicians who draw the people into war were forced to shoulder the rifle and take position in the front line of battle, then we would have a truly humane war, because they would then find a way to settle all differences without resorting to force of arms. Had the English law required Joe Chamberlain, Alfred Milner and C.J. Rhodes, to go into the front line of battle as proof of their earnestness and sincerity and of their love for their country, it is certain that the pages of history would never have been stained by the account of the bloody war in South Africa.