The pastor preached from his heart a sermon of hope and encouragement, his words being interrupted by the sound of sobbing. Hardly a man there but had his arm supporting the woman at his side, or grasped her hand in his. The text was from Ezekiel, xxxvii. 3-9: And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. Tender, with infinite pathos, yet manful, and with a virile faith that seemed to make the impossible actual, the sermon went on. It was a prophet’s opportunity, such as comes to but few preachers in all history, to stand at the final threshold of a nation’s life, to bid farewell to the men leaving for the forlorn hope of the last struggle, and to embrace in one cry of faith both the heartbreak and the resolution of a people. It was in the Dutch tongue, but the preacher repeated it to me in English the next day, and I was the witness of the effect of its simple eloquence on the people. When the service was over, there was a solemn and tearful handshaking before the congregation scattered for the last time to their homes; the men to buckle on their bandoliers and rifles for the next day’s battle, the women to pray for the safety of those brave hearts so dear to them, or to weep alone with memories of those they had loved and lost. [Illustration: The Boer retreat from Pretoria.] CHAPTER X. The British in Pretoria [Illustration: One of the Guards at Pretoria.]