The covenant - James A. Michener [512]
He explained that God willed this diversity and applauded the strangeness that existed among nations. He wanted tribes to be different, to retain their distinctive qualities, and Brongersma suggested that if South Africa had been in existence when Acts, Chapter 2, was delivered, the litany might have ended thus:
'Afrikaners and Englishmen, Coloureds and Asians, Xhosa and Zulu, all spake in their own tongues.'
Detleef snapped bolt upright, for these local names were recited in the exact order he had seen them that morning when sunlight struck the glass of jellies. His world was in order; the races were distinct and they were separated, each in its proper place. He heard the remainder of this remarkable oration in a kind of majestic stupor; this was a confirmation that would last a lifetime, and others in the audience that evening would say the same when they governed this nation, as Brongersma had predicted they would: 'One lecture unfolded the future for me.' Brongersma now cited some fifteen pertinent texts, one of the most powerful coming from another chapter in Acts:
'God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord . . . and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.'
From this passage he derived the principle that God wanted each race to have its own boundaries and not to trespass on the territory of others; this applied both to physical boundaries, such as where people lived, and to mental, so that each race retained its own customs and laws. He then pointed out that religion asked all groups to accept the limitations placed upon them, especially people in the lower ones:
'As the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk . . . Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou may est be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.'
And then he came to the crucial issue: 'Are all groups equal in the eyes of God?' He reminded his listeners of what he had said in Lecture Two, that unquestionably all men were brothers, but he went on to say that not all brothers stand equal in the sight of God. On this the New Testament was most specific; there were good nations and bad nations:
'When the Son of man shall come . . . then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom . . . then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire . . .'
He ended superbly, looking with flashing eye at his listeners, as if to challenge each one personally: 'In the time of judgment, which is now, will Jesus Christ set our nation on His right hand among the sheep, or throw us on His left side, among the goats? For the nature of our society we must look to the Old Testament, which I shall do in my concluding lecture.'
That night the audience was ecstatic as it left the church, for listeners could be sure that the Afrikaner nation was saved, while the English and the Bantu were probably lost. More than a dozen families wanted Brongersma to come with them to share supper, but he elected to go with the Van Doorns, and it was then that he saw the dangerous waters into which his young friend Detleef from Vrymeer was heading. He said nothing that night, but he wondered what good could come from this country