The Covenant Part 73

He was especially attracted by his older professors, those men of learning, some from the university at Leiden, some from Oxford, who saw their nation as it actually was, a mix of cultures striving to achieve a central tendency, and he found to his astonishment that two of the cla.s.ses he enjoyed most were taught by Englishmen, in English. But he appreciated them as he might an especially provocative cla.s.s in Latin; these men were dealing in historic materials that were long since dead, and if they did so brilliantly, they did so nevertheless with a sense of the mortuary, and he knew it.

The men who exerted the deepest influence were the younger professors who discussed contemporary values, the future of South Africa, its current crises. There were no courses in such subjects, but the better professors knew how to slip relevant teaching into their lectures. In 1916, for example, there was much discussion of how the war in Europe would terminate, with some professors still convinced that Germany would win, but conceding that her victory would not mean much constructively to South Africa, which would face a new set of problems. One man warned: 'I cannot see Germany surrendering Lourengo Marques to us when she conquers it from Portugal. It will be her port, not ours, and indeed, she may drive a harder bargain for its use than the Portuguese did.' Hardly a day pa.s.sed but what some challenging idea was extruded, sometimes painfully, always cautiously, and his mind expanded with this new aspect of learning.

Living in the house of a predikant's widow, and b.u.t.tressed by constant pressure from Reverend Brongersma back in Venloo, it was natural that Detleef should fall into the orbit of the professors of religion, and they quickly saw in this able young man a likely prospect for the pulpit. He was inherently devout and well informed on Biblical matters; both his father and the old general had taught him from the time-scarred Bible, and the predikants of Venloo had been a virile lot, preaching a durable version of the Old Testament, while Barend Brongersma had introduced him to the subtleties of the New, so that by the end of his first year it was generally a.s.sumed that he would be heading for the ministry.

As had been the case for the past hundred years, one of the most influential voices in the Dutch Reformed clergy at Stellenbosch was a Scotsman, a devotee of John Knox named Alexander McKinnon, whose ancestors had been Dutch-speaking Afrikaners since 1813. It was he who introduced Detleef to the persuasive teachings of the conservative prime minister of Holland, Abraham Kuyper, who had promulgated new theories on the relations.h.i.+p between church and state. It was from McKinnon that Detleef first gleaned an appreciation of the fact that South Africa might soon have to evolve new patterns for contacts between the races. On this subject McKinnon was most conservative, going back to a strong Calvinism to support his contention that races, like people, were foreordained to either salvation or d.a.m.nation: 'Obviously, the Bantu are the children of Ham, as the Bible explains.' Detleef noticed that like most cultured people these days, he avoided the pejorative word Kaffir, Kaffir, using instead the curious word using instead the curious word Bantu, Bantu, which more accurately was the name of a language, not that of a tribe or nation. 'Obviously, the Bantu as a group cannot be among the elect, although individual Bantu can become highly educated and just as favored of G.o.d as the finest Afrikaner. Individuals can be saved, but the race as a whole is certainly condemned.' which more accurately was the name of a language, not that of a tribe or nation. 'Obviously, the Bantu as a group cannot be among the elect, although individual Bantu can become highly educated and just as favored of G.o.d as the finest Afrikaner. Individuals can be saved, but the race as a whole is certainly condemned.'

But in the latter part of his first year at Stellenbosch all such matters faded into insignificance, for the university discovered that in Detleef they had a natural-born rugby player, and in a nation increasingly mad about sports, this attribute superseded all others. He was a thick-necked block of granite, tested in real battle, and extremely quick in adjusting to the movements of the enemy. He played forward, and in the scrum his shoulders disrupted the opposition, breaking holes in their line, while his feet were unusually nimble at hooking the ball or sending it forward. He was a stubborn chunk of aggression who could absorb punishment without flinching, and as such, he was invaluable.

The Stellenbosch fifteen were known as the Maties because of their strong sense of fraternity; they were a formidable combination, capable of playing the best regional teams, but their special delight came in defeating the Ikeys of Cape Town, so-called because that university admitted a goodly number of Jews, who were not exactly welcomed at Stellenbosch. Any Maties-Ikeys game was apt to be exciting, and in the first one Detleef played, he excelled. From then on he was accepted as a member of the Afrikaner group that specialized in sports, and by virtue of this he traveled to many parts of the country, playing against the men who would later occupy positions of leaders.h.i.+p, for in South Africa there was no pa.s.sport to preferment more effective than members.h.i.+p on the Stellenbosch rugby team.

These were the years when the game was dominated by one sensational family, the Morkels, and sometimes Detleef would go up against a team that fielded six players with that name, or seven. Twenty-two Morkels were playing in this decade: brothers, cousins, unrelated solitaries, all of them stout lads. Detleef knew it was going to be a strong game whenever he bent over in the scrum and found himself facing two or three of these rugged types. Once, the four biggest men facing him in the tight confrontations were Morkels, and he left that game, as he told his coach, 'as if I had slipped by accident into a thres.h.i.+ng machine.' He was not surprised when an entrepreneur announced plans to invade Europe with a team composed only of Morkels; it would be formidable.

It was as a rugby player that Detleef finished his first year at Stellenbosch, and it was princ.i.p.ally because of this reputation that he attracted the attention of the Van Doorns who operated the famous vineyards at Trianon. One afternoon, to the house in which he boarded, a Bantu came bearing an invitation to Detleef van Doorn to take dinner that evening with his Trianon cousins. It was the day after a game in which five horrible Morkels had run up and down his spine, so he was not exactly lively, but he had heard so much about Trianon that he accepted, and rode out to the winery.

Like many before him, he gaped when he approached the western entrance and saw for the first time those enchanting arms reaching out and the pristine facade of the main house waiting to welcome him. The war years had been good to Trianon; General Buller had paid top prices for its premier wine and other officers did the same for the lesser blends, so that the Van Doorns had sold their entire pressings for European prices without having had to pay freightage to get the bottles to that market. In all respects the place had been improved, and now looked pretty much as it would through the twentieth century.

On the stoep, resting on one of the tiled benches built two centuries earlier by Paul de Pre, waited Coenraad van Doorn, head of the establishment, who had extended a similar welcome to Jakob in 1899, on the eve of the Boer War. He was heavier now, a man in his late forties, and his manner was even more affable, for life had been exceedingly good. He loved sports and was proud to have a member of his family, even one so remotely a.s.sociated as Detleef, playing well at Stellenbosch.

'So this is the hero I've been reading about, the Matie who sweeps them aside!' Extending both hands, he drew Detleef up to the stoep and in through the front door. In the wide hallway between the rooms Detleef saw for the first time the Van Doorn daughter, Clara, nineteen years old and so pretty she caused him to gasp. Her face was beautifully oval, with cheekbones just a bit too wide, and framed by carefully brushed amber hair worn in a kind of Dutch-boy bob. She smiled warmly as she stepped forward to greet her distant cousin, and said, 'We are so happy to see such a rugby player in our home.'

At dinner her two older brothers, Dirk and Gerrit, who had by now graduated from Stellenbosch, asked a barrage of questions about the university and their chances of beating the Ikeys again, and the evening proved to be one of the most pleasant Detleef had ever spent. It was fortunate that it was occurring at the end of his first year, because by now his success at rugby had transformed him from an awkward country lad into a self-confident university man, quiet-spoken and interesting. When talk turned to the war in Europe, he repeated some of the things he had heard in cla.s.s, predicting a German victory in Europe but no significant change in the countries bordering South Africa.

'What I feel precisely,' the older Van Doorn said, and as Clara walked with Detleef to the automobile that would take him back to his lodgings she said, 'You've been learning something at the university. Come back ana share your knowledge with us.' He started to protest that he really knew very little, but she halted him: 'No! My brothers went to Stellenbosch and they learned precious little.' It was as if she rode in the car with him back to town, so vivid was his recollection of her lovely bearing.

He spent two weeks trying to invent some excuse for returning to Trianon, and then one night the driver was there again with a note: 'Dr. Pretorius of Paarl is coming to dinner and would like to meet you. Clara.' It was the beginning of a thrilling experience, for Pretorius was active on a committee agitating to have Afrikaans accepted as the legal equivalent of Dutch and he was excitable about the matter: 'Acts of Parliament must be printed in Afrikaans. Our major newspapers should convert to it immediately. I've been speaking with our leading clergymen. I want our Bible to be in our language.'

'Are they ready for that?'

'No. In that quarter I receive much opposition. But consider. For three centuries in the late Middle Ages people spoke one language and read their Bible in Latin. That had to change.'

'The Catholic church still conducts its Ma.s.ses in Latin.'

'That will change, too. The day will come when your daughter here is married by a predikant reading the service from an Afrikaans Bible.'

'You think so soon?' Mrs. van Doorn asked. 'I'm afraid you'll be an old maid, Clara, if you wait for that.' Clara did not blush, but Detleef did.

After one agitated flight of speech, Dr. Pretorius looked about the room as though to command close attention, then said in a softer voice, 'I want to speed the acceptance of our true language because it can become the chief agency in uniting the Afrikaners of this land and inspiring them to wrest the government from the English.'

'We have the numbers already,' Coenraad pointed out.

'But without a central soul, numbers are nothing. And what is the soul of a people? Its language. With Afrikaans we can capture this nation.'

At a subsequent meeting, at which he especially wanted Detleef to be present, Pretorius faced up to the accusation, launched by Coenraad, that Afrikaans was a second-cla.s.s peasant language: 'Exactly, and that's why its vitality is a.s.sured. It will be precisely like English. And why is that language so effective?'

Each listener offered some reason: 'No declension of nouns.' 'Few subjunctive verbs.' 'Strict word order, which a.s.sures meaning.' 'A lot of quick short words to indicate case.' 'A simplified spelling.'

Clara said, 'And if English spots a good word in another language, it takes it . . . with no apologies.'

At each idea, Dr. Pretorius nodded approvingly, then asked permission to read from the work of a distinguished Danish scholar who was exploring this subject: 'He is Dr. Otto Jespersen, world-famous authority, and he says, "The English language is signalized by order and consistency... Simplification is the rule." And here he makes a point which relates specifically to our new Afrikaans: "Whenever I think of English and compare it with other languages, it seems to me positively and expressly masculine. masculine. It is the language of a grown-up man and has very little childish or feminine about it."' It is the language of a grown-up man and has very little childish or feminine about it."'

He asked Clara to pa.s.s out slips of paper, and when they all had pencils he directed them to write this sentence in English: We ourselves often took our dogs with us. We ourselves often took our dogs with us. 'Four p.r.o.nouns to express the first person plural. Now see what happens when we write the same sentence in Afrikaans: 'Four p.r.o.nouns to express the first person plural. Now see what happens when we write the same sentence in Afrikaans: Ons onsself het dikwelf ons honde saam met ons geneem. Ons onsself het dikwelf ons honde saam met ons geneem. One word One wordonsto convey all those meanings.'

'But isn't the English more precise?'

'It is indeed. Just as the Latin forms agricola, agricola, by the farmer, by the farmer, agricolae, agricolae, to the farmer, are more precise than to the farmer, are more precise than the farmer. the farmer. But we refuse to bother with such niceties. Prepositions are so much simpler. One word for But we refuse to bother with such niceties. Prepositions are so much simpler. One word for farmer. farmer. Sixty prepositions to define relations.h.i.+ps.' Sixty prepositions to define relations.h.i.+ps.'

From another pocket he produced a handful of sheets on which verses from Matthew, Chapter 6, had been printed in English: 9. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11. Give us this day our daily bread.

12. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

He pointed out how relatively simple this was, and how direct. He then asked the Van Doorns to study other sheets of paper, where the same verses appeared in the Old Dutch of their 1630 Amsterdam Bible.

9. Onse Vader die daer zijt inde Hemelen: uwen name worde geheylicht.

1. Drijckje kome. Uwen wille ghejchiede op der Aerden gelijck inden Hemel.

Gheeft ons heden ons daghelijcks broodt.

Ende vergheeft ons onse schulden. Gelijch wy oock vergheven onsen schuldenaren.

He read this aloud twice, stressing the beauty of the flowing Dutch they had learned as children and still used when reciting their prayers. He obviously cherished the rhythms of this version, but indicated that it would be better when translated into Afrikaans, of which he gave a sample: 9. Onse Vader wat in die hemele is, laat u Naam geheilig word; 10. laat u konindryk kom; lat u wil geskied, soos in de hemel net so op die aarde; 11. gee ons vandag ons daaglikse brood; 12. en vergeef ons ons skulde, soos ons 00k ons skuldenaars ver-gewe . . .

'Ah!' he cried triumphantly. 'How excellent!' And he went over the new translation, line by line, indicating its superiority: 'See how much simpler the Afrikaans is, how purified of old encrustations. This is to be the language of the future, believe me.'

When the two older Van Doorns protested that they did not want their Bible tampered with, he said bluntly, 'The generation that is forty years old when the change comes will know an agony of the soul. After that we will be a new people.' When Coenraad tried to voice another doubt, he said abruptly, 'Remember, if John Calvin were alive today, he would be using a Bible in Afrikaans.'

Detleef, back in his room, balanced the two versions of a word he loved: The old Nachtmaal Nachtmaal becomes the new becomes the new Nagmaal. Nagmaal. I don't like it. The mystery of I don't like it. The mystery of night night is lost. And for the first time he sensed that many great good things of ancient virtue might be lost during a normal lifetime: the women he had loved so much in the concentration camp, the st.u.r.dy virtues of General de Groot. He stared at the night and could not sleep, but as dawn broke he thought: It's my duty to save the good old things. is lost. And for the first time he sensed that many great good things of ancient virtue might be lost during a normal lifetime: the women he had loved so much in the concentration camp, the st.u.r.dy virtues of General de Groot. He stared at the night and could not sleep, but as dawn broke he thought: It's my duty to save the good old things.

While Detleef was enjoying these varied experiences, the young men of the Saltwood families were pursuing their studies in a much grimmer cla.s.sroom. Near the city of Amiens and east of the great battle site of St. Quentin was a hunting preserve known as d'Ellville Wood, and both the Allies and the Germans realized that this grove of trees would prove crucial in the tremendous Battle of the Somme.

The German high command issued the order, 'D'Ellville shall be taken, regardless of cost,' at exactly the time when the Allied command said, 'The wood must be held at any cost.' A t.i.tanic battle to the death had become inescapable.

On 14 July 1916 Colonel Frank Saltwood, fifty-six years old and one of the first volunteers in his country's expeditionary force, received orders to take and hold d'Ellville Wood. In his command were four of his nephews Hilary and Roger of the Cape Town Saltwoods, Max and Timothy of De Kraaland they, too, had volunteered early.

Throughout four unbroken days the two armies battled, calling upon every great gun in the area until the trenches shuddered from explosives. Without any rest or hot food, the five Saltwoods defended their terrain heroically, with Colonel Frank moving from spot to spot to encourage his nephews.

On the second day Hilary was shot through the head. On the third day young Max led a valiant charge, which was annihilated. And on the last day Colonel Frank, rus.h.i.+ng to an endangered point, was struck full in the face by seven German bullets, and with his death the South African position was doomed.

But into his place leaped Roger, who at twenty years old a.s.sumed command of the battle. He would have led his men to defeat had not Timothy gone totally berserk, as heroic young men sometimes will, and held off a platoon of Germans, killing most of them. And now the two cousins, surrounded by innumerable dead, including three Saltwoods, rallied the South Africans. Ignoring the hailstorm of German sh.e.l.ls, grimly preparing for the next attack, they staffed the command post and defended the woods which they had occupied at such fearful cost and held so tenaciously.

When the South Africans were finally relieved on the fifth day of battle Roger Saltwood, as senior in command, reported: 'We took 3,150 men into the wood five days ago. We are marching 143 out.'

Delville Wood, as the battle became known in English, represented perhaps the high spot in human courage during this war. The South African volunteers had given new meaning to the word heroism, heroism, but the cost could not even be calculated by critics who were not there. In the pompous tradition of the time, British headquarters issued a statement that was supposed to compensate for the terrible losses, as if this had been a kind of rugby game: 'In the capture of Delville Wood the gallantry, the perseverance and determination of the South African Brigade deserve the highest commendation.' but the cost could not even be calculated by critics who were not there. In the pompous tradition of the time, British headquarters issued a statement that was supposed to compensate for the terrible losses, as if this had been a kind of rugby game: 'In the capture of Delville Wood the gallantry, the perseverance and determination of the South African Brigade deserve the highest commendation.'

This suicidal action had been devised and ordered by Sir Douglas Haig, one of the young generals who had learned their trade with Redvers Buller during the Boer War. Unfortunately, few of them had acquired his concern for the fighting man.

The two surviving Saltwoods, Roger of Cape Town and Timothy the V.C. from De Kraal, managed leaves together. They spent them at Sentinels with their Salisbury cousins, and as they sat beside the River Avon and looked across at the timeless cathedral, it was Timothy who told the local Saltwoods, 'We did lose three of us, yes. But it was only what we should have done for England.'

At Stellenbosch, as the war in Europe stumbled to an end, there was considerable commotion. One of the university's most promising recent graduates was announced as offering a series of four lectures on the moral bases upon which any government of the country must rest. Detleef was especially interested in the event because the speaker was Reverend Barend Brongersma, his own predikant. He invited Clara to hear the lectures with him, and her parents asked to come along, as did one of her brothers.

At Brongersma's request, the a.s.semblies were held not at the university but in the largest of the local churches, and all seats were taken. Brongersma was now thirty-seven, at the threshold of his powers and the apex of his appearance. He was tall, slim, with a head of dark hair, and he appeared modern in every way as opposed to the older Dutch and Scottish theologians who normally occupied podiums at the university. He was different from them, too, in that he did not address himself to abstruse philosophical problems, but to the down-to-earth difficulties a politician met in running a proper government. His voice was equal to the task; Dutch Reformed congregations appreciated a predikant who could storm and thunder, and he could.

He was certainly not a coward. At the opening of his first lecture he said that the future of this nation depended upon the way it managed its relations.h.i.+ps with the various racial groups, and so that his listeners would know what he was talking about, he invited them to write down the figures he was about to recite: 'They deal with the actual and projected populations of this country.' And he gave these data: THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.

Actual Group Population 1950 1950 Estimate Estimate 2000 Estimate 2000 Estimate Afrikaner 800,000 2,700,000 4,500,000 English-speaking 400,000 900,000 1,500,000 Coloured 525,000 1,200,000 4,200,000 Indian 150,000 366,000 1,250,000 Bantu 4,100,000 8,600,000 33,000,000 Without comment on the relative strengths of the five groups, he launched into a review of the positions the Dutch Reformed Church had taken on the matter of race during the past two and a half centuries, reminding his listeners of things they might have forgotten: 'Under Jan van Riebeeck, whites and blacks wors.h.i.+pped together, which was sensible because there was no alternative. In the frontier churches at Stellenbosch and Swellendam, similar conditions prevailed.

'Problems arose with the rite of communion, many whites not wis.h.i.+ng to drink from the same cup that blacks used, but various ways were devised to get around this, and in general, wors.h.i.+p continued to include both white and black. At mission stations especially this was the custom, with whites being invited to attend churches that were primarily black.

'But at the Synod of 1857 pressure was exerted to change this, and a curious solution was proposed. The leaders of our church confirmed that Jesus Christ intended his people to wors.h.i.+p as one, and this was to be preferred, "but as a concession to the prejudice and weakness of a few, it is recommended that the church serve one or more tables to the European members after the non-white members have been served." It was further recommended that whereas it would be healthy and in accordance with Gospel for all to wors.h.i.+p together, "if the weakness of some requires that the groups be separated, the congregation from the heathen should enjoy its privilege in a separate building and a separate inst.i.tution."

'So in certain districts separate church organizations were established whose members wors.h.i.+pped in separate church buildings, and in time this custom became universal. It was found that most white church members preferred to wors.h.i.+p only with other whites, on the sensible ground that health could thus be protected and the dangers of miscegenation avoided.

'As a result of such pressures, a policy developed of having separate church buildings and church organizations for each of the various racial groups, and this lent strength to the Christian movement, for the Coloured and Bantu now had churches of their own which they could operate according to their own tastes, yet all were united in the brotherhood of Christ.'

He said much more, of course, in this historical lecture, but he left the impression that the Christian church was one and undivided, that the Coloured and Bantu preferred to have their own church off to one side, and that the present division of the church into its various components was something ordained by G.o.d, approved by Jesus, and eminently workable in a plural society. He certainly did not apologize, and would have been astounded had anyone asked him to do so.

'That man is an a.s.set to any community,' Coenraad van Doorn said when he a.s.sembled his family and Detleef at Trianon. 'He speaks with a clarity one seldom hears.'

'He told me things I didn't know,' Clara said. She looked as if she had been crying, and Detleef asked what had happened.

Her mother answered, 'The awful deaths in Europe. Clara has many friends there, you know.'

Detleef said, 'I didn't know there were very many Afrikaners fighting in that silly war.'

'There are,' Clara snapped, 'and it's not silly.'

'Any men we have there are certainly fighting on the wrong side. Germany's bound to win, and a good thing, too.'

Mr. van Doorn intervened to quash a difficult subject: 'I wonder what Brongersma will tell us next time?'

'He said in pa.s.sing that it would deal with the New Testament,' Clara's brother said.

'Good. None of us know that section of the Bible well enough.'

'The Old Testament is sufficient, really,' Detleef said, and again the atmosphere chilled, but when it came time for him to say goodnight, Clara volunteered to walk with him to the car, took his hand and squeezed it. 'You mustn't be so contentious, Detleef. A living room isn't a rugby field.'

'But if a man has beliefs . . .'

'All men have beliefs. And sometimes they adhere to theirs as firmly as you do to yours.'

'But if theirs are wrong . . .'

'You feel obligated to correct them?'

'Of course.'

To his astonishment she leaned over and kissed him. 'I'm glad you're strong, Detleef. You're going to need it.'

He was trembling, and clutched her hand. 'I don't want to be obstinate, but . . . well . . . even Reverend Brongersma can be wrong sometimes.'

'For example?'

'Well, I felt he was apologetic about the way our church separates into white, Coloured, black. But that's what G.o.d intended. Even the whites separate. Afrikaans for the true believers. English for the others.'

'Detleef, how can you say that?' When he looked blank in the pale light, indicating that he had no concept of what she was talking about, she said, 'The Afrikaners and the English as being different religiously.'

'Well, they are!' he said forcefully. 'They believe quite differently from us. They don't pin their faith on John Calvin. They're almost Catholic, if you ask me.' He trembled again, this time from the terrible force of his convictions. 'And surely G.o.d entered into no covenant with them.'

To this extraordinary body of belief, Clara had no comment; her family had developed under quite a different body of faith and had often gone to the Church of England for services when that was more convenient. But now it was time for Detleef to return to the university, and as he held her hand he asked shyly, 'May I kiss you goodnight?' but she deftly pulled away.

'No, no! When I kiss you that's one thing, but when you kiss me that's another.' And before he knew what was happening, she touched him lightly with another kiss and skipped away.

Reverend Brongersma's second lecture was a revelation to Detleef and a surprise to others who thought they knew the Bible. It dealt almost exclusively with the teachings of the New Testament and the nature of Christ's church on earth. It was highly theological, but also intensely practical to those Afrikaners who sensed that with a German victory in Europe, and perhaps in Africa, relations.h.i.+ps were bound to be different from what they had been in the past. The audience sat in deep, religious silence as he spoke with that fluid breadth of concepts which would characterize this series: 'I told you last time that the orderly development of our church from the days of Van Riebeeck to the present was a good thing, approved by G.o.d and consonant with the teachings of Jesus Christ, and that we must always be proud of the high mission of our church. But since it exists in the bosom of Christ, it behooves us to know what exactly He said about our responsibilities and conduct.'

With this he launched into a patient hour-and-a-half a.n.a.lysis of New Testament teachings, drawing upon the soaring texts in which Christ set forth the essence of his thought. He said, when introducing the focal pa.s.sage from Matthew, 'If we live in a land with divided populations, almost every question we face will pose special problems which other more h.o.m.ogeneous nations can evade. We cannot, and how we solve these problems of race will determine the character of our existence.' He then read the pa.s.sage: 'Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'

He cited so many pa.s.sages in Christ's teaching bearing on this issue that Coenraad whispered to Clara and Detleef, who sat together, 'He sounds like an LMS missionary,' and none could discern what he might be driving at: 'For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.'

And if anyone felt reluctant to accept this teaching, he threw at them a text which emphasized the message. It came from Colossians: 'Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circ.u.mcision nor uncirc.u.m-cision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.'

This led him to what he warned was the key text of his entire series, the n.o.ble pa.s.sage on which a G.o.d-fearing nation should build its patterns. It came from Ephesians and summarized, he said, the whole teaching of Jesus: 'There is one body, and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one G.o.d and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

'The spirit of Jesus Christ resides in the bosom of every man and woman and child living in this nation,' he said in rising voice to indicate the conclusion of this lecture. 'It takes no cognizance of white or black, of Indian or Coloured, of woman or man, and certainly it does not distinguish between Englishman and Afrikaner. We are all one in Jesus. He loves us equally, He cares for us evenly.'

There was some restiveness in the audience at this revolutionary doctrine, for members felt that whereas these precepts did undoubtedly occur in the New Testament, their application was a more delicate matter than Reverend Brongersma appreciated. When he concluded with the stern warning that Christianity required its adherents to apply these fundamental strictures in their private and public lives, and especially in the organization of their societies and nations, there was actually a rumble of disapproval, but he stalked from the podium without taking cognizance of it.

That night there were no hearty invitations for him to join suppers at Stellenbosch homes, and the Coenraad van Doorns were so agitated that they did not even invite Detleef to Trianon; before they parted Mr. van Doorn said, 'Your predikant hasn't learned much up north,' and Detleef, without endeavoring to defend him, admitted, 'It all sounded so woolly. I like more order in society than that,' and even Clara, who had liked parts of the lecture, grumbled, 'He doesn't seem to understand his audience. We face real problems in this country, and he talks mealie pap.'

But Barend Brongersma did not graduate from Stellenbosch with honors because he was stupid. He had intended his long second lecture to create the effect it did because he wanted it to serve as preparation for what he knew would be one of the most important performances of his life, and when he stepped boldly to the podium for the third lecture he quickly told his audience why: 'Tonight I am addressing the young men who in the years to come will govern this nation. Look about you, I pray. The lad sitting next to you may be your prime minister one day. That fellow over there will preach in the mother church at Cape Town. You will be chancellor of this university, and you will be amba.s.sador of our independent country to Paris. It is important that you think about the future, that you ponder the nature of a free society.

'Jesus addressed himself to this grave problem, and so did St. Paul, and in the New Testament they provide us with guidance. To govern well, we must govern justly, and to govern justly, we must govern wisely. What does Jesus tell us to do?'

Before he cited the relevant texts, he asked his audience a series of blistering hypothetical questions, until everyone present was aroused, leaning forward to catch what solutions he was about to propose. Then, with low voice and gentle patience, he began to unfold the teaching of Jesus, and the text he chose was so recondite and arbitrary that someone not from South Africa would have been at a loss to understand its application, but he claimed it to be the very foundation of the law, the most vital text in the entire Testament, insofar as the governance of nations was concerned. It came from the second chapter of Acts: 'And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rus.h.i.+ng mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting . . . And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave them utterance . . . every man heard them speak in his own language.'

What could be profound about that? How could the policy of a nation be built upon such an esoteric base? As he elucidated the text, it became clear: G.o.d created all men as brothers, but he quickly divided them into distinctive groups, each man to his own kind, each nation separate and off to itself, and here he thundered forth that wondrous sequence of names appearing in this all-important chapter: 'Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak . . .'

He explained that G.o.d willed this diversity and applauded the strangeness that existed among nations. He wanted tribes to be different, to retain their distinctive qualities, and Brongersma suggested that if South Africa had been in existence when Acts, Chapter 2, 2, was delivered, the litany might have ended thus: was delivered, the litany might have ended thus: 'Afrikaners and Englishmen, Coloureds and Asians, Xhosa and Zulu, all spake in their own tongues.'

Detleef snapped bolt upright, for these local names were recited in the exact order he had seen them that morning when sunlight struck the gla.s.s of jellies. His world was in order; the races were distinct and they were separated, each in its proper place. He heard the remainder of this remarkable oration in a kind of majestic stupor; this was a confirmation that would last a lifetime, and others in the audience that evening would say the same when they governed this nation, as Brongersma had predicted they would: 'One lecture unfolded the future for me.' Brongersma now cited some fifteen pertinent texts, one of the most powerful coming from another chapter in Acts: 'G.o.d that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord . . . and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.'

From this pa.s.sage he derived the principle that G.o.d wanted each race to have its own boundaries and not to trespa.s.s on the territory of others; this applied both to physical boundaries, such as where people lived, and to mental, so that each race retained its own customs and laws. He then pointed out that religion asked all groups to accept the limitations placed upon them, especially people in the lower ones: 'As the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk . . . Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou may est be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.'

And then he came to the crucial issue: 'Are all groups equal in the eyes of G.o.d?' He reminded his listeners of what he had said in Lecture Two, that unquestionably all men were brothers, but he went on to say that not all brothers stand equal in the sight of G.o.d. On this the New Testament was most specific; there were good nations and bad nations: 'When the Son of man shall come . . . then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom . . . then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire . . .'