The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-04-11
RELIGIOUS RITES.
The Church Observances Of the
Beers Of South Africa
They Are Very Simple and Unostents-
tious and Are Conducted with Deep
Deyoutness-The Minister Is
Greatly Revered.

ship the Beers are exemplary, and in
their home life they know very little
of social diversion but what is of this
nature. They pray in stentorian tones
and sing with solemn heartiness that
conveys the idea of dead earnestness
Their susceptibilities are easily moved
by a little emotional oratory. 1t fills
them with a sense of unctuous salts
faction. but the sense of Journalism
would shock their sense of decorum.
They would hardly approve OF such
manners in church. The critics who
scout their p,iety and call it by the name
of hypocrisy are guilty of thought
less derision that bellies reflection. Out
of church the Beers have certainly a
little weakness for parading their re-
ligion. They indulge considerably in
Scriptural phraseology, and allude to
the personality of God in way that
sounds familiar and canting, but there
is no idea of profanity in it Il is with
them an evidence of reverence and sim
cerity, and, in justice to them, l must
state that in all my intercourse with
these people have found them sternly
free from the slightest approach to lev
ity on the subject of things held sacred.
They regard the services of the Eng
lish Episcopal church at Pretoria as
nothing but a theatrical show. To
them it appears travesty of religion.
Like most people of simple and pas
toral habits, the Beers retire soon after
the close of day and rise with the first
dawn of the morn, and in the early
twilight they assemble and sing
psalms and hymns and offer up
prayers with strength and earnest
ness that constitutes quite laborious
effort. Their tunes are intensely
dreary and monotonous. They sing in
spasmodic lengths with long pauses in
tervening, and the impression conveyed
is that each one follows his or her own
time and tune; therefore, except for its
heartiness, it does not inspire much ad-
miration, unless gratitude at being at
a distance from it might bear that con-
struction. Az soon as darkness closes
in a heavy supper is partaken OF, and
then a repetition of the mornings de-
yotional exercises takes place, and the
family retire to rest Strict in their
ideas of church-going, and in the OBJ
servance of the rites it imposes, they
necessarily regard the minister with
the greatest reverence, and they are
willing subjects of his little autocracy.
He is to them the direct emissary of
God and the bulwark of their faith.
He performs all the spiritual Offices
their lives have need of, and is also the
guardian of their morals, and derelic-
tons in this respect restrict the culprit
in church privileges, than which moth
ing could be more terrible
The ministers of churches among the
Beers are mainly Hollanders, though
there is growing desire for men of the
country to fill these Offices, and some
of them are men who have studied at
the Cape theological schools. These
men having the same origin as the
Beers, their sympathies are allied to
them, and thus their influence will
have greater weight In advocating ed
ucation. Every town boasts the some
what odd-looking structure built in the
form of cross, which Is known to be
the church. 1t has its place in the cen
ter of a square, from which point the
town takes its growth. The minister
generally has his babitation within the
shadow Of the walls of the church, tin
Grating periodically among his flock,
who are scattered throughout the dis
trict, living at great distances apart,
on their lonely farms. Every three
months naachtmaal, or celebration of
the sacrament, takes place at the par
ish church, if l may call it so, and it
is made the occasion of the ingathering
of the whole flock, who make this a
point of most exemplary observance,
the majority of them having to perform
several days of travel to be present. At
these times the square round the
church is the camping ground in which
hundreds of wagons and tents are
packed, a scene of life and hustle which
contrasts strangely with it's usual quiet
appearance. Friends meet and re-
ioice in social intercourse, thawing to
merriment and joviality in the atmos-
phere of a camp fire under the quiet
stars of heaven, and so full of a certain
method and repuse is the aspect of this
gypsy life among the Beers that the
casual onlooker would feel a difficulty
in dissociating them from il, so aptly
does il seem to be their normal element
Annie Russell. in To-Day.