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INCE we last dealt in these pages with the calamitous war in South Africa there have been a number of collisions-some of them of serious moment-between the opposing forces. The beleaguered towns, with their English garrisons, have as yet been relieved; but their situation is now much less critical, owing to the withdrawal of masses of the Boer besiegers to bar the approach of the two chief British columns which, as we write, are pressing forward to the relief of Ladysmith and Kimberley. So far, these hitherto closely invested towns have not only kept the intrepid burghers at bay, but, in the case of Ladysmith, and also in the case of Mafeking, have been able to make effective sorties, which caused serious loss to the beleaguering enemy. One of these sorties occurred at Mafeking on the night of October 27 last, when the dashing commandant, Colonel Baden-Powell, organized a night attack with the bayonet on the Boer trenches, which General Cronje was pushing forward in echelon toward the British earthworks, with the design of facilitating a rush upon the place. This grim counterstroke had the desired effect of stopping the construction of the concealed approaches to the British defences; while it inflicted dreadful slaughter upon the slumbering Boers, who were found wrapped under a covering of tarpaulins.

Another sanguinary sortie was that which took place at Ladysmith on the 9th of November, when the Boer levies under Joubert made a determined assault upon the place, in anticipation of its possible early relief. Taking up a commanding position on the ridges and kopjes. overlooking the town, the Boers poured into the luckless city and its defences a continuous hail of shell. The British thereupon issued from the place and at fearful disadvantage faced the Boers, who were repulsed with great loss, but afterwards recklessly rallied again, only to be once more beaten back. At this juncture the British artillery opened upon the retreating burghers a terribly effective shell fire, which cost the Boers, it is stated, a loss of nearly 800 men. So appalling as well as terrifying was the destruction by the lyddite fire on the occasion that Ladysmith has since been practically free from

attack; though the British have otherwise been sufferers from a reverse which happened in the vicinity of Colenso, when an armored train on a reconnaissance was derailed, and its fifty-odd defenders, including the English war correspondent; Winston Churchill, were captured and sent as prisoners to Pretoria. In these and other encounters there has been no lack of bravery on both sides, while there has been a calamitous loss of life. Other occasional reverses the British have also sustained, but the situation has now greatly brightened for them in the arrival and forwarding to the front of the new army corps, with the colonial contingents, under the chief command of General Sir Redvers Buller.

The coming of this fresh and numerically strong body of troops, including many of the élite regiments of the British army, has put the imperial country in a position not only to relieve its menaced garrisons, but to take the offensive in the field. No doubt, in time, they will enable England to recover Natal and Cape Colony from the invasion of the Boers. Their coming must also have its influence in keeping the Dutch in the British colonies loyal to the imperial power, while overawing the natives and preventing them from rising. Already the reader knows what the new and relieving army has accomplished in the engagements of its several divisions with those of the Dutch republics under Joubert and Cronje. The sturdy manner in which the Boers have faced the coming of these new troops, we need hardly say, does not betoken an early collapse of resistance to the British; but it manifestly puts an end to the Dutch hope of extruding the English from South Africa and the erecting of an Afrikander dominion over the entire country. Difficult indeed are they making the reconquest of the invaded portions of British possessions, but it is a difficulty now seen not to be insurmountable, or doubtful in its final results. How much harder might have been the task had the Boers begun the fighting earlier, or, instead of sitting down so long before Ladysmith, had they pushed on southward to Pietermaritzburg and Durban, the British may well shrink from reflecting upon. As things are, though Ladysmith and Kimberley may

both feel relief in the prospect of the sieges being raised, the task before the British is still an arduous and sure to be a costly and a bloody one. The pinch of extreme danger to Britain may be passed; but the subjugation of the Boers is, we fear, still far off; and far off, also, the obliteration of resentments and the pacification of the vast and ominously disturbed country.

The campaign, though it began badly for England, owing to the small number of troops she had in the country to oppose the rapid mobilization of the aggressing Dutch, speedily took on a different aspect when Sir Redvers Buller and the new army corps reached South Africa. Then offensive operations commenced in earnest against the Boers. The chief interest in these operations has centred in the expedition for the relief of Ladysmith, under the old campaigners Generals Hildyard and Sir F. Clery, and that for the relief of Kimberley, under Lord Methuen, formerly commanding Methuen's Horse and the British field force in Bechuanaland. The former of the movements, which had Durban for its starting-point, was the first in point of time to be undertaken. Ladysmith, the objective point of the expedition, is about one hundred and eighty miles from the port of Durban; it lies on the line of railway which intersects Natal, the northern portion of which has, since the outbreak of the war, been overrun by the Boers. The beleaguered town, in which nearly 12,000 British troops under Sir George White are shut up, is reached by way of Pietermaritzburg, the capital, thence by way of Weston on the Mooi River, Estcourt, and Colenso on the Tugela. The Boers, who are estimated to have a total force of 30,000 men in this section of the country, have raided as far south as Estcourt, forty miles from Lady

smith.

This post the Boers, on the 15th of November, attempted to take at a rush, but they were actively repulsed, the garrison being effectively aided by the accurate fire of a naval gun. Just before this (on the 9th of November), General White successfully repulsed, with heavy loss to the Boers. a general attack on Ladysmith. The Boers failing at any point to break the defence of the place, the British made a brilliant sortie, which drove the Boers from their positions with great loss of life. The fighting in Natal has since been very desultory, the Boer in

vesting force at Ladysmith having broken up into small raiding commandos, which seek to isolate and entrap scouting detachments of the British and to impede and harass the advance. As we write, the Boers are now massing in strength at Colenso, and there, it is expected, an important battle will soon take place, the issues of which cannot fail to be of great mo

ment.

Interest meanwhile has centred in the dashing movements of Lord Methuen's column on the west side of the Orange Free State. This expedition was fitted out in light marching order with the view of bringing speedy relief to the besieged garrison at Kimberley. The rapidity with which the command has moved forward from Cape Town to De Aar Junction, thence across the Orange River to the Modder, and fighting three well-contested battles on the road, has won unstinted praise from military critics. Especially cheering to the English has been the result of these three engagements, which were fought successively at Belmont, at Graspan (Enslin), and at Modder River, though elation over the victories has been sadly qualified by the entailed expense of brave human life.

The battle of Belmont was fought on the 23d of November; the Boers, who were chiefly Orange Free. State burghers, held strongly entrenched positions defended by many cannon. They fought with stubbornness and showed the deadly marksmanship that distinguishes the Transvaaler. Three ridges occupied by the Boers were successively carried by the British Guards, whose gallantry was sorely tried by the Boer fire. The Guardsmen did great havoc with the bayonet, the carrying of the ridges being first prepared by the shrapnel fire of the naval brigade. The British victory was completed by the rout of the Free Staters, who were hotly pressed by the fire of the artillery. The Boers are said to have lost in this battle over 600 killed and wounded, besides 50 taken prisoners. The British loss exceeded 50 killed and 247 wounded: the casualties mainly falling upon the Yorkshire and Northamptonshire regiments, the Northumberland Fusileers, the Highlanders, and upon the Grenadier, the Coldstream, and the Scots Guards. The engagement at Graspan, ten miles nearer Kimberley, followed closely upon the rout of the Boers at Belmont. The Free Staters

were found well entrenched and holding a range of kopjes commanding both sides of the railway. After a fierce artillery fire, which lasted three hours, a vigorous and successful assault on the Boer lines was then made by the Ninth Brigade, and the kopjes were carried by bayonet attack. The pursuit of the main body of the burghers in flight, by the Ninth Lancers, owing to the roughness of the ground, added little to the day's achievement. The British sustained a loss of 26 killed and 160 wounded. The Boer casualties at Graspan have not been ascertained.

The battle at Modder River on the 27th was a sanguinary affair, lasting fourteen hours, the British fighting the whole day, it is reported, without food or water and under a scorching sun. The Boers, 11,000 strong, were entrenched on the north side of the river, having two heavy guns and four Krupp field-pieces in position. The British began the action at 5.30 A. M. by a continuous cannonade from the field batteries lining the south bank of the swollen stream, which is here twenty miles from Kimberley. The day was made hideous by the hail of infantry rifle-fire for five miles up and down the river, and by the shelling of positions on both sides by the artillery and the Hotchkiss and Maxim guns. One correspondent (Julian Ralph) testifies that during the action "the British never saw the enemy, yet they were not able to raise hand or foot without being riddled."

The day was given over to the artillery on both sides, and the slaughter of Boer and Briton was terrible. When night fell, the Boers were so dispirited and apprehensive of the morrow's further deadly work that they abandoned their positions and fell back some six miles north of the Modder River. The British loss for the day was 77 killed and 391 wounded, with 7 men missing.

The serious loss of life in these three engagements has brought home to the English people a keen and saddening sense of the horrors of war, which has been intensified by the suspense occasioned by the rigid military censorship at the Cape. It has also brought some sharp criticism upon Lord Methuen for the reckless way in which he appears to have dashed his forces against masses of the Boers occupying strong or concealed positions, and for the disregard of tactics in handling his troops when engaged so as to leave

them as little exposed as possible to the deadly marksmanship of the enemy. Criticism has also fallen sharply upon the English War Office, on account of its antiquated intelligence department, and for the failure to equip General Buller's army corps with sufficient heavy guns of long range and with a larger force of light cavalry for scouting purposes and for giving the coup de grâce to the enemy when retreating after a battle. And yet it is perhaps ungracious so early to arraign the methods of conducting the campaign, or that of putting an army in motion, when the distant field of operations is considered, and when one reflects upon the unusual demands of men and material necessary to face an enemy whose numbers, mobility, fighting capacity, stubborn resistance, and peculiar but effective strategy England. has all along both underestimated and underrated. Still less perhaps is criticism justified in face of the unpreparedness of England for war with the Boers, the rapidity with which she has put so large a body of gallant men in the distant field, and the trying conditions which have so seriously and unexpectedly confronted the nation. Nor is the situation, grave as it undoubtedly is, such as to cause her real or prolonged uneasiness. The Boers, though they have done much strenuous and even brilliant work, have not had it all their own way their ideas of the fighting ability of Englishmen have admittedly undergone change, and on repeated occasions they have had a disconcerting taste of cold steel. The besieged towns still defy assault, and though their defenders have had a hard time of it, their plight, from all accounts, is not worse than that of the Boers, whose ammunition is now reported to be low, while even their food supplies, in spite of indiscriminate raiding and looting, are falling threateningly short. Nor is their plight less an anxious one if it be true that the levies of the Orange Free State are getting tired of the war and have to be coerced to meet the onslaughts of the enemy.

On the other hand the situation has still its menace for the British. The loyalty of the Cape Colony Dutch is being seriously tampered with, particularly about Colesberg and the borders of the Orange Free State. In this region neutrality is vital to the success of the movements of the columns under Generals Gatacre and French. The serious impedi

ments to the British advance, in the blowing up of bridges and the destruction of the railway lines, as well as the harassing mobility and active vigilance of the burghers throughout the invaded portions of the country, add to the responsibilities of the work which the British have undertaken. The situation is complicated by uncertainty as to the attitude of the natives, by the doings of the Dutch spies who traverse the country, and by the hardly concealed seditious utterances among the Afrikander element in the southern and more settled portions of Natal and Cape Colony. Nor is the situation assuring in the neighborhood of either Ladysmith or Kimberley, where desperate battles will presently have to be fought before anything decisive can be accomplished, besides the task of sweeping out of the invaded territory all the raiding Boer bands and turning the tide of invasion successfully into the heart of the two Dutch Republics. With the victory at Modder River, that the tide has turned for the British many reasonably hope, of those at least who foresee in Britain's triumph a substantial gain for freedom, justice, and human happiness.

Since the above was written little change has taken place in the situation of either of the two chief relieving columns. The bridge over the Modder River, it is cabled, has been provisionally repaired, and Lord Methuen, it is understood, only awaited reinforcements, now received, of light horse and the arrival of several howitzers, for long range lyddite shelling, to enable him to make a further forward movement on Cronje's Boer force in the direction of Kimberley. At Spytfontein, or in its immediate neighborhood, the Boers, who are in large force, will, it is anticipated, make a determined stand. Unluckily, owing to a serious reverse to General Gatacre's column at Molteno, near Stormberg Junction, and to the employment of General French's column operating in the disaffected region stretching northward from Naauwpoort to Colesberg, Methuen is not likely to get any assistance in attacking Cronje's strong position on the farther side of the Modder. With his increased equipment, and the aid to be received from Kekewich's garrison at Kimberley, when the relieving column is in closer touch with the place, we may now look for Methuen's renewed advance and a probable invasion in force of the

Orange Free State in the direction of the capital. The disaster to Gatacre's division in attempting to take Stormberg by surprise, and its effect in keeping General French from being of any aid to Methuen, are naturally disappointments to the British. Nor is the loss (said to be of 500 men) of Gatacre's force, who were captured by the Boers, to be lightly esteemed at this critical juncture when Dutch disaffection in the northern districts of Cape Colony is so rife. It is doubtless to this disloyalty in the region that Gatacre owes his treacherously-devised reverse. Fortunate will it be for the British if the war does not bring to light other and still more calamitous instances of Afrikander disaffection in the imperial colony.

At Ladysmith the British find the situation more cheering. Not only does the town pluckily hold out, but General White, it appears, has been able to make another effective sally. Before dawn on the morning of December 8, the garrison made a sortie in the direction of the Boer laagers with five hundred men of the Natal volunteers and one hundred of the imperial Light horse. The British crept stealthily up a ravine and stormed and carried Lombard's Kop, which was held by the Boers, and from which they had been shelling Ladysmith with a Creuzot gun and a howitzer. The guns were destroyed with dynamite, and a Maxim gun was captured and brought to camp. In another sortie, in the direction of Pepworth Hill, other Boer guns were taken and the camp kraals burned. This sallying force, owing to the furious fire encountered, sustained a loss of four killed and seventeen wounded.

Again we deplore the pitiful loss of life, and not on one side only, but on both. And yet sentimentality, we are told, is out of place in war. Happily there are abundant evidences of a contrary opinion. In England there has been a more than usual outcropping of humane feeling among all classes, with eager hands held out in relief to the widows and orphans of the war, as well as to the sick and wounded at the Cape or on the way back to the tending care of the motherland. Nor has the generous heart of this country, in the emergency, remained untouched by thrills of sympathy and practical benevolence, as the gracious offer to England of the finelyequipped hospital ship "Maine » bears emphatic witness. G. MERCER ADAM.

AKRON, O.

T

O JOHN ENDICOTT, as much as to any other one man, is due the honor of establishing and perpetuating Puritan America. He was one of the charter members of the Massachusetts Bay Company. He was the leader of the first expedition which came hither to effect a settlement under the grants made to that company. He it was who effected an amicable agreement with Roger Conant and his comrades already established here as a fishing community,-out of which agreement Salem received its name. It was he upon whose representations of the country as a place for settlement depended the success or failure of the colonization movement, and strongly did he stand for the goodliness of the country. He was the first governor of the colony after the transfer of its control to the scene of action. It was he who held the distressed and decimated little company together through the rigors and discouragements of those first terrible winters. It was he, more than any other, who determined the form of church government which prevailed. Congregationalism owes its two cardinal principles of independency and fellowship as largely to him as to any other man. For it was he under whose direction the independent ordination of Higginson and Skelton took place and who invited the fellowship of the Plymouth church.

What manner of man was he who thus shaped and sustained the beginnings of Puritan New England? Manifestly, a man of tremendous strength, determination, and force; for no other could undertake and accomplish what John Endicott did. A There gigantic deed argues a giant hand. were giants in those days, and such was Endicott. A mighty virility, a masterful mind, a controlling will, a devoted spirit, were his. From such a man, with such a training as he had and in such a position, you could hardly expect the sweetness and charity, the grace and tolerance that other temperaments and other circumstances are calculated to exhibit. dicott was not a Sidney or a Gladstone, nor even a Roger Williams or a John Winthrop. He was a stern suppressor of what he thought to be wrong. He summarily despatched the Brown brothers back to the mother land for corrupting, as he thought, with the English ritual, the pure

En

unfettered air of the New World. He boldly and uncompromisingly slashed the cross from the English flag, offended by its suggestion of popery. He executed a terrible judgment upon the Indians and sentenced to death the poor fanatic Quakers. And yet he did it all with a good conscience, verily thinking within himself that he was doing God service. In these severities he cannot be upheld. Yet there is much, very much, to extenuate them. His were times of violence and superstition. His was an office that called for prompt and decisive action. He was a Puritan of the Puritans. And yet he was not without his attractive qualities. Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working Providence," calls him "the much honored John Indicat, a fit instrument to begin this Wildernesse-work; of courage bold, undaunted, yet sociable and of a cheerful spirit, loving and austere, applying himself to either as occasion served." Surely his utter devotion to the cause and to the colony should not be eclipsed by any harshnesses of which he was guilty. "In every crisis," says Charles M. Endicott in his Memoir, "the little band looked to him as the weatherbeaten and tempest-tossed mariner looks to his commander, next to God, for encouragement and support, and they did not look in vain."

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If one may judge of a person by his letters, certainly that famous letter of Endicott to Governor Bradford, of Plymouth, breathes a most loving and charitable spirit.

"RIGHT WORSHIPFULLE SIR:

"It is a thing not usual that servants of one Master, and of the same household, should be strangers. I assure you I desire it not, nay, to speak plainly, I cannot be so to you. God's people are all marked with one and the same mark, and have for the main one and the same heart, guided by one and the same spirit of truth, and where this is there can be no discord, nay, there must needs be a sweet harmony: and the same request with you I make unto the Lord, that we as Christian brethren may be united by an heavenly and unfeigned love, binding all our hearts and forces in furthering a work beyond our strength with reverence and fear, fastening our eyes always on Him that is only able to direct and prosper all our ways.”

That epistle is almost worthy of a place in the Scripture Canon. The man who