Not only does it imply a curious miscomprehension to state that the rule of the clergy has been autocratic and oppressive, but it has been his Church which has formed for the Boer his most valuable exercise ground in Republican Government, and his relations to it and to his clergy exemplify markedly his curious inborn gift for self-government. Not only have his pastors been men of the people, rising up from among them and from no selected class, and imposed on him by no authority from without; but in every case each particular congregation selects its own leader, and frees itself of him when proved undesirable. The submission with which, in a still largely oligarchically governed country like England, a single individual is allowed to select, by his own autocratic will, son, brother, or dependant, and place him in control of a church and parish with all its inhabitants for a lifetime, is a condition unintelligible to the free South Africa Boer, and one he would not tolerate for an hour.
On the other hand, while he would not tolerate, and still less submit to, or respect, or regard as valid, any authority imposed on him from without, having once for himself selected an individual in whom he reposes full confidence, he is peculiarly willing, not merely to support and follow him, but to submit to his administration of the law, provided it is a law which he has at first agreed to recognize; and this is equally true whether the case be that of a pastor, field-cornet, commandant, or the president of a state. It is this inborn peculiarity which yields to the Boer his remarkable aptitude for Republican Government, and prevents him from being amenable to any other form of rule.
It is often objected, when one questions the wisdom of that unwritten law which ordains that, in the English Army, out of an empire of countless millions, all its officers should yet practically be selected from a comparatively small knot of wealthy families known as Society, and that such a process must hopelessly cripple the army; that the English nature is so addicted to oligarchic rule that the bulk of men born in England could never be made to respect, follow, or submit to, one of themselves; that the fact that a man was born in their street, shared the conditions of their daily life, and belonged to their own class, would cause them to look down upon and despise him. Whether this be true of the English or not, with the Boers exactly the reverse is the case. It is precisely the man of the people, growing up among them, sharing their life and social condition, whom, when he has won their confidence and they have selected him to his post, they are willing to follow and support with a whole-heartedness seldom accorded to rulers or leaders of men.[75] They submit to the man because they regard him as the incarnation of their own will.