Cape of Good Hope

“ It was hoped that the name of the Prince of Orange, who had sought refuge in England, might prevent any opposition; and it was determined, in the firat place, to secure the Cape of Good Hope, by friendly negotiation if possible, but if not by force. ”

“ The apparition, which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope, is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own! ”

“ "I suppose that, after visiting the curious coasts of Arabia and Egypt, the Nautilus will go down the Indian Ocean again, perhaps cross the Channel of Mozambique, perhaps off the Mascarenhas, so as to gain the Cape of Good Hope." ”

“ Greyheads and widows who had lived in ease and comfort went down poverty-stricken to the grave, and gradually the hard fact was borne in upon us that there was no such thing as Justice for us in England. ”

“ So to us in the midst of occasional tempests, and selfish cliques, appear the intimations of the promised land, fruitful of all good, to which we are hastening; and we only need to remind one another of these pleasant omens, which are too full of the promised triumph to allow the spirit of the Cape to either depress or destroy. ”

“ I might then prove a true missionary to the poor benighted fellows. Yet I shall hope to have broken heavily into their deplorable and degraded superstitions before I dismiss them at Cape Town.'
I caught sight of the shadowy form of the steward lurking abaft the companion-steps, where he seemed busy with some plates and a basket.
'It is your hope,' said I, 'to convert the Mussulmans?'
'It is my hope, indeed,' he answered; 'and, pray, what honester hope should possess a man?'
'It is an admirable desire,' said I, 'but a little dangerous perhaps.'
'Why?' asked he. ”

“ A great light lay upon the wake of those frail ships that bore our fathers hither; the wake of past ages, the following of good men's prayers and brave men's deeds, the mingling currents of martyr-blood and prophet-fire. And methinks, as they struck the shore, and met the savage wilderness, a Voice saluted them; a voice not of profane ambition and of selfish hope, but of Divine promise, intending Divine results—proclaiming, "Thou art a great people, and hast great power." ”

“ The settlers came to church out of choice and necessity and as the land prospered the farmers and the tradesmen and the Captains came in humility and thanksgiving, giving generously to the support of the beautiful, white edifices that were the symbol of their devotion to Christianity. They have survived waves of free thought, of come-outers, Quakers, and bad times and good and they still stand, a monument sculptured in wood to man’s best dreams, their plain, dignified and honest lines a living testimony to the character of the Cape men who built them. ”

“ But if this should not be accomplished by human agency, I would fain think and hope, if the wisdom and the valour of man should fail, a kindly Providence has in store a happier lot for one so fair, so virtuous, and so good. Let us foster hopes of brighter days; these are troublous times, and one revolution of Fortune's wheel may bring momentous changes. Perhaps the asperities and hatreds of race, engendered by these cruel wars, may be soothed and healed again, and Saxon and Norman may be blended in one united people. ”

“ I had seen, in my fond imagination, churches enriched, charities endowed, all that wealth and power had used to evil ends converted to measureless good. But it was a fantastic dream. We exalt ourselves, no doubt, in planning for the human emancipation. ”

“ To prove to you, excellent sir, that we are not so cruel as you may think, we assure you that we wish for peace with all our souls; but on condition that all the whites, without a single exception, leave the Cape. Let them carry with them their gold and their jewels. All we seek is our liberty. ”

“ But life went on, and you thanked your God that it had been no worse, for, in a sea-going community, the sea had claimed so many, and brought about such tragedy, that Cape people stood up to the buffets of life as bravely as their stout vessels stood up to the angry seas of the world. This was part of the strength that I had felt in Aunt Alice from our first meeting. It was a strength that came from an abiding faith in God and in His sense of the fitness of things—in an era when the living was not easy, and only the strong survived. ”

“ Miss Carpenter frequently mentioned the workhouse as a place which ought to be looked after; and which she believed sadly wanted voluntary inspection; but the very name conveyed to me such an impression of dreary hopelessness that I shrank from the thought. When St. Paul coupled Hope with Faith and Charity he might have said “these three are one,” for without the Hope of achieving some good (or at least of stopping some evil) it is hard to gird ourselves to any practical exertion for our fellow-creatures. ”

“ Hope is a sweet comforter to an anxious heart, and presented a vision of future bliss to the wakeful spirit of the maid, which afforded her occupation for the night, presenting to her the prospect of days to come, when Laud should obtain an honourable discharge from his country’s service, where he was now numbered among the bold, the brave, and the free, and in which the same Providence which had preserved him to perform the good act of that night would, she hoped, still preserve him for many more good deeds. ”

“ One day I asked, to see if he was well instructed at school in religious matters, ‘What is hope?’ ‘One of the king’s big archers, who comes here when father goes out,’ said he. Indeed, the sergeant of the Archers was named Hope. My friend was dumbfounded at this, and, although to keep his countenance he looked in the mirror, he could not see his horns there.”
The baron observed that the boy’s remark was good in this way: that Hope is a person who comes to bed with us when the realities of life are out of the way.
“Is a cuckold made in the image of God?” asked the Burgundian. ”

“ We—that is to say, my Wilhelmina and I—hope, during this time, to be able to dry a great many tears, and to shed as few ourselves as our lot, as children of the earth, may permit.
We hope not to survive each other.
Lastly, we hope always to be able to hope; and when the hour comes that the hopes of the green earth vanish before the clear light of eternal certainty, then we hope that the All-good Father may pass a mild sentence upon His grateful and, in humility, hoping children. ”

“ Those who were capable of appreciating their worth, who had felt their benevolence, had enjoyed the privileges they allowed, and knew how rarely they were found in the plantations, mourned them with unfeigned sorrow, their loss closing up the avenues of consolation and of hope; and those too young to feel how much they were deprived of, were quickly made sensible of a change from a system of Christian love and benevolence, to that built upon the mere hope of worldly gain. ”

“ Such was the magnetic tone and touch of that rare spirit that carried hope and trust to the hopeless sorrowing, the great heart that could with truth and sincerity enfold not only his own country, but the whole human brotherhood of the world, and caused him to reply in effect to those who wished him to subscribe to some special creed: “When I can find a church broad enough to take in the whole human race, then I will join it.” ”

“ As from the vantage ground of these happier times we look back upon the stern experiences of those iron days, they inspire a blended feeling of pity and regret, not unmingled with a vague remorse, shot through and through our patriotic pride and exultation, like dark threads in a bright woof. Through the long centuries of carnage and strife through which the race has struggled up to freedom, how faint has seemed the echo of the angel's song, "Peace on earth, good will to men." ”

“ Those unconscious, pathetic heroes, pulling their shallop ashore on the Cape yonder in 1620—what reverence can exceed their just merit! What praise can compass the virtue of that sublime, unconquerable manhood, by which in the calamitous, woful days that followed, not accepting deliverance, letting the Mayflower go back empty, they stayed perishing by the graves of their fallen ”

“ Because thou have accepted them with thy whole heart, thou are delivered from them by my presence; what pleases me is not trouble, but the will that supports it courageously. I created thou in my own image and likeness, and I have assimilated myself to you, in taking thy nature. I never cease rendering thou like to me, so long as thou offer no obstacle, and what I did during my mortal life, I strive to renew in thy soul as long as thy pilgrimage endures. Therefore beloved daughter, it is not by thy virtue, but mine, that thou have so generously combatted, and merited such an abundant grace ”

“ And when in other lands eyes grow dim with the mists of despair, they will look up and the light of a new-born hope will enkindle within them. And when hearts in other lands are sinking from repeated failure, they will pulse with the inspiration of a fresh courage when the story of our efforts and our triumphs is recalled. ”

“ If the poor shattered voiceless thing, which lay so quietly in its shell in an outhouse awaiting the coming verdict, could only once have pleaded in visible evidence for itself, surely the solemnity of that mute entreaty for peace and forgetfulness would have found its way even to those insensate hearts. But charity is as much a matter of imagination as of feeling, and many an unobtrusive need in the world fails of its relief through the lack of that penetrative vision in the well-meaning. ”

“ As she went on, a spirit of exhilaration rose to possess her, quite alone and at liberty as she was. State and observance seemed unreal things; there was not a soul abroad to remind her of them; she and nature were in one confidence together, as if, like old companions long mistily estranged, they were as mistily reunited.
Involuntarily, it seemed, her steps took her towards the spot associated with an incident of yesterday. There was a woven arbour near by the lily-pond, and her thoughts settled there, as in a hermitage sweet for meditation. ”

“ If the certainty that the community must be bettered, can be bettered, should slacken, where would it find revival? In faith, hope, and charity? But can hope endure and charity be permanent without faith? ”

“ No mid-way steering for this whole-hearted heroine—no hints, no tell-tale sighs, no tearful looks askance to haunt him with half-truths; no lagging partner snivelling unspoken resentment of her burden. She’d bear it all and bravely, the weight, the heat and pressure of the day, and cheer him, smiling, on to self-redemption. That be her mission—by ways of healing grace to guide him to that summit he would never attain alone. Man’s responsibility might be to the civil laws ”

“ Without hope of gain, without hope of honour, without love of life, without fear of death, who mourned for nobody, for whom nobody would mourn, she knelt in the streets in the danger zone and prayed for the success of the revolution.
With the fire in her old veins revived, with the patriotic heart, she, too, held her place in the ranks, hearing the wonderful call that had come to her countrymen. When all seemed quenched of youth and young heroic dreams, poor and nameless, she threw off the rags that poverty held about her and was beautiful in the tricolour of faith, hope, and love. ”

“ This singular and delightful retreat was called ‘Les petits Capucins.’ Nothing but the idea of captivity, and that restless anxiety for worldly prosperity, or to speak more plainly, that forgetfulness of the inexhaustible goodness of Divine Providence, and want of confidence in our Heavenly Father, could have prevented my enjoying perfect felicity there. But ungrateful, and impatient as I was, I can now recollect with feelings bordering on delight, the many instances in which I acknowledged my sense of the happiness I enjoyed. ”

“ To grasp that little stronghold of heresy in our hand at last, and dust the tares into the fire. Woe on them that have baulked us in the hour of their triumph! They shall burn, Allen, they shall burn. We will sweep the land with flame, that the after-crop may be rich and virgin. The world surrenders piecemeal to our Christ, the Prince of love and justice. A land of God we’ll make it——”
He paused abruptly on the word, and stood staring, his jaw loose. Then rallied, and, breathing out a deep sigh, whispered: “That dog! ”

“ I have told these Red Cross workers that they themselves must know how to laugh, must be able to rise above the horrors about them, for they are there to serve heroes, not cowards, heroes who will laugh with a sob in their throats; heroes who, after a short respite, will reach for a new sword with which to resume the battle of life. God grant we may have the new swords ready for them—swords of hope, swords of confidence, swords from which all the old prejudice and misconception have been removed—swords of occupation and independence! ”

“ For, now that life has grown so precious to me, even though I but cling to ashes of hope, I wonder how in the coming days of battle I shall stand the test? Yet now that I write with a clearer discipline, a new feeling of reverence comes to me as I think on the men of France who fought beside me, with memories and hopes in their hearts. What others have done, I can do. All our vaunted courage is sometimes no more than that. ”

“ Never will I be able to give all that I desire, but with a courage born of the lessons learned in sorrow during the past two years, I must and I shall devote my waking hours, life itself, to the welfare of our people. No difficulty or obstacle, however stubborn or forbidding, shall alter my course or change my will.
We must provide a better life for our people. We must give less comfort to ourselves. We must provide more hope to our nation. We must seek less gratification ourselves. ”

“ The happy warrior is borne by gentle hands to God's own land of peace, where the fret and fury of battle slip from him like a discarded garment, and beside the still waters of that better country he finds healing for his hurt. It is that quiet and blessed hope that is being reborn in our hearts this day as the Church keeps her festival of a Risen and a Living Christ. It is that lively hope the Church offers for comfort to all stricken homes and to every sorrowing heart. ”