The new system was defended by those who devised it and profited by it, as a benevolent institution, because it took the orphan children of the Kaffirs—for whom their own people made no provision—and apprenticed them to Africander masters for a limited period, to terminate in every case at twenty-one years of age. But when it is understood that in many cases the Kaffir bond-children had been made orphans by Africander bullets the benevolence of the institution becomes a vanishing quantity. And it is to be remembered, in judging of this matter, that these ignorant Kaffir apprentices had no means of knowing their own age, nor was there any one to speak and act for them when the proper time for their release from bondage came. The new system was slavery under a less repulsive name, and was so regarded by its victims. It is only fair to the Africanders to trace their conduct in this matter back to the convictions and principles honestly held by them, and by which they justified to themselves their practices toward the natives. Almost without exception they were men of intense religiousness and devout regard for the Bible. It was a great misfortune to themselves and to the natives of South Africa that they found their standard of ethics, not in any of the moral precepts of the New Testament or the Old, but in their own deductions from scraps of Old Testament history which were never intended to furnish ideals and standards of virtue and righteousness for later generations. Thus, they looked upon the dark races about them as the yet “accursed” sons of Canaan the son of Ham, doomed by heaven to perpetual servitude to any people who might care to enslave them, because of the sin of their forefather, Ham. They seem to have forgotten, too easily, that the divine entail of evil consequences to follow certain sins was limited to “the third and fourth generation,” and insisted without warrant of any kind on bringing it over to and enforcing it upon the one hundred and thirtieth generation. Holding such views, they considered themselves as doing service to God when they inflicted the degradations, hardships and cruelties of slavery upon the offspring of Ham. It was their custom to meet for prayer before going on one of their forays, to implore the help and protection of the Almighty in what they were about to do; then they went forth heartened and emboldened by the conviction that the coming battle was the Lords, and to fall therein would be a sure passport to heaven. It would be untrue to say that all the Africanders were of this belief and practice, but undoubtedly the majority of them so believed and so acted.