76 THE SOUTH AFRICAN INDIAN QUESTION have to do still further penance. °° Therefore I b¤D¤ you will hold yourselves in readiness," he pro- ceeded, " tc respond to the call the Government may make by declining our just and reasonable requests, and then to again force the pace by again undergoing still greater purifying suffering, until at last the Government mav order the military to riddle us also with their bullets. My friends, are you prepared for this? (Voices: °° Yes.") Are you prepared to share the fate of those of our countrymen whom the cold stone is resting upon to-day? Are you prepared to do this (Cries of `°Yes.") Then, if the Government does not grant our request, this is the propo- sition I wish to place before you this morning. That all of us, on the first day of the New Year, should be raady again to suffer battle, again to suffer imprisonment and march out, (Applause.) Tllllll is the only process of purification and will be a substantial mourning both inwardly and outwardly which will bear justification before our God. That is the advice we give to our free and indentured countrymen-to strike, and even though this may mean death to them, [ am sure it will be justi- fied." But if they accepted the quiet life, he went on, not only would the wrath of God descend upon them, but they would incur the disgrace of the whole of that portion of the European world forming the British Empire. (Ap- plause.) He hoped that every man, woman and grown- up child would hold themselves in readiness to do this. He hoped they would not consider self, that they would not consider their salaries, trades, or even families, their own bodies in the struggle which was to his mind a struggle for human liberty, and therefore a struggle for the religion to which they might respectively belong- It was essentially a religious struggle-(hear, hear)——as any
