The descendant of generations of old seventeenth-century Boers returns from his studies in Europe an enthusiast over all the latest inventions, an advocate of new ideas and an upholder of the newest fashions. In colonial life, it is a matter of common remark, none are more attracted to the new and the modern than the nineteenth-century educated Dutch, whether man or woman. It would almost seem as though that very dogged strength of character, which for ages has made him capable of retaining his hold upon the old, when the necessity for doing so passes, makes him equally resolute to grasp the new. It has been said of the African Boer that he used his old flintlock gun for a generation after Europe had discarded it. That was true; but had he discarded it, it could only have been to adopt the assegai of the Kaffir. The day he was shown the Mauser, he recognized it and grasped it, and he has used it--not without effect! In very truth, if one should speak frankly of what one most fears for the African Boer, it is a too rapid renunciation of his past, and an acceptance of the new without a sufficient and close examination. Were it possible that our words should reach him, fain would we apostrophise our old-world Boer and his wife thus:--"_Hou maar vas, Tant' Annie! Hou maar vas, Oom Piet!_"[74] Be not too ready to give up the past, we pray you. All that is new is not true, and that which comes later is not always an improvement on that which went before. We English have an old saying that if you keep your grandmother's wedding-dress sixty years, times will have come round and it will be in the fashion again. For the world goes round, O Oom and Tante!--unwilling as some of you may still be to believe it!--and that which was new becomes old, and that which was old becomes new again! Do not be too anxious to change your old customs, your simple modes of life, your deep faiths, till you know what you are exchanging them for: the world goes round; and the day may come when you, South Africa, and the world will have need of that which you now are so willing to throw away. [74] "Hold fast, Aunt Annie! Hold fast, Uncle Piet!" practically meaning, "Stand where you are and hold your ground." "Oom and Tante, I will whisper to you a secret! Here, in the very heart of this great material civilization of ours which swells itself so bravely and makes so much noise--here, in the heart of it, there are some of us men and women who are beginning to have our doubts of it; we are beginning to find it out. We may not be very many now, but we shall be more by and by; and we are beginning to question what all this vast accumulation of material goods in certain hands, this enormous increase in the complexity of the material conditions of life, necessarily leads to?