We believe that no one who is aware of our attitude towards sacerdotalism generally, to dogmatic theology everywhere, will accuse us of any undue bias in favour of the Dutch Reformed clergy on account of their function or abstract theological views, when we say that not only the Boer but South Africa generally is under debt to them.
Undoubtedly there must have been cases of self-seeking and self-assertion; and a certain narrowness is perhaps inherent in _all_ forms of sacerdotal rule; but, viewed as a whole, their influence must be pronounced as having been beneficial, and this far beyond the ordinary mean. They have striven manfully to introduce both in education and social life much of what was healthiest and most vitalizing in our modern civilization, and to exclude much of that which was lowest and most sordid; and with singleness of purpose, with but few exceptions from the days when Erasmus Smit followed the fortunes of the early fore-trekkers and his aged wife harangued the British Commissioner at Maritzburg, they have stood faithfully by and headed their people in all times of oppression and need.
The time is very rapidly approaching when the unique relation between the Dutch pastor and his flock will finally have ceased. For the last twenty years the intellect of the Boer race has rapidly been finding openings for itself; the bar, the side-bar, the medical profession, the professor's chair, administrative and political life are absorbing the brilliant youths. The time is very rapidly approaching when the minister will differ from his flocks only in the fact that he has gone through a course of dogmatic theology, and when he will be equalled or excelled in general culture and knowledge of life by the large mass of his congregation; and, with this change, he will take his place side by side with other clergy, whose usefulness is confined to the performance of their ghostly functions; and, with this change also, the Church will cease, save in exceptional cases, to draw the best intellects of the people, as it has done in the past. But we believe that in the future no impartial survey will be possible of the history of South Africa during the last two hundred years without it being perceived how large is the debt which, not the Boer alone, but South Africa generally, owes to the clergy of the Dutch Reformed Churches.