WHAT IS HE DOING?
Mr. Rhodes, as I have said, is a Darwinian. He believes in the gospel of evolution, of the survival of the fittest, of progress by natural selection. With such outfit as this, he set himself in his diamond-hole to attempt the solution of the oldest of all problems. “If there be a God, and if He cares anything about what I do, then,” said Rhodes to himself, “I think I shall not be far wrong in concluding that He would like me to do pretty much as He is doing—to work on the same lines towards the same end. Therefore, the first thing for me to do is to try to find out what God—if there be a God—is doing in this world; what are His instruments, what lines is He going on, and what is He aiming at. The next thing, then, for me to do is to do the same thing, use the same instruments, follow the same lines, and aim at the same mark to the best of my ability.”
Having thus cleared the way, Mr. Rhodes put on his thinking cap and endeavoured to puzzle out answers to these questions. It sounds somewhat profane, the way in which he puts it; but in its essence, is it not the way in which
General took his seat again, held out his hand to him in the midst of a silence, which to me seemed eloquent of thoughts too deep for words. Later in the day I had a close talk with him about eternal things. I have no idea what religious training or experience he may have had in the past, but one thing was quite clear to me, he had a lofty conception of duty, and while conscious of his great influence, knew that it was bestowed on him in the providence of God, to Whom he was accountable for all.
Mr. Rhodes was delighted with his day at Hadleigh, and said so. He went everywhere, saw everything, asked innumerable questions, interviewed officers and colonists, tasted the soup, challenged the price of the coal, offered his advice on the value of certain fruit trees, and chaffed me unmercifully about an old portable engine which ought, no doubt, to have been disposed of long ago, but which our poverty had induced us to keep going. He was much impressed by some of the colonists, and could not believe at first that these fine brawny fellows could ever have been what, alas! we knew only too well to have been the case. The General requested him to speak to one or two, and he was delighted, and showed it in the most unaffected manner.
When we were separating that night at Liverpool Street Station, he said to me, “Ah! You and the General are right; you have the best of me after all. I am trying to make new countries; you are making new men.”
