The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-11-05

someb dy, who are row nothing more nor
less than safe-keys in breeches, the
who of their life consumed in the m
slant worry Of seeing that their encr-
nous investments do not deteriorate, and
the not less erduous task Of investing o
the hest advantage their surplus rev.
enues Their imagination is crushed by
their millions: political career Is bar
III aGed against them by their own
money-bags. A crowd Of parasites and
beggars swarm round them like m B.
quttoes round a weary wanderer In a
southern swamp. They can do nothing
see nothing, risk nothing They sit like
golden Budohas, cross-legged in an East
ern temple, eternally contemplating their
gilded Eaunch
In his dealings with his own workpeople,
Mr.. Rhodes is just and generous. 1t Is the
fashion to denounce his treatment Of the
Kafflrs 5000 of whom earn 81 a day in
the diamond compound at Kimberley; but
the Rev. Donald Macleod, one Of the
queens chaplains and editor OF Good
Words. who recently made personal ms
Vestigation of the facts of the case has
published very remarkable testimony to
the effect that after Christian mission
aries no one had done so much for the
African native as Cecil Rhodes.
In Matabeleland he Is regarded by the
natives as the one white man whom they
can trust. He conquered them, but they
felt him to be just; and after the terrible
insurrection, 1t was by his venturing un-
armed into the rebel stronghold of the
MatappoS that the struggle was brought
to a peaceful conclusion.
Mr.. Rhodes conception of his duties to
his fellow-men rests upon a foundation
as tAstinctly ethical and theistic as that
of the old Puritans. If you could imagine
an emperor Of old Rome crossed with one
Of Cromwell's Ironsides and the result
brought up at the feet of Ignatius Loyola,
you would have an amalgam not unlike
that which men call Cecil Rhodes The
idea Of the state, the empire and the SUI
preme allegiance, which 1t has a right to
claim from all it's subjects Is as fully de-
Veloped in him asfin Augustus or in Ira
jan. But underlying all this there Is the
strong, earnest; religious conception of
the Puritan.u Mr.. HRhodes Is not, In the
ordinary sense Of the word, a religious
man He was born in rectory, and like
many other aclergymen's sons, he is no
great churchxnan. Gle has an exaggerated
horror of the extent to which modern re-
search has pulverized the authority of the
Bible; and, strange though 1t may appear
to those who only know him as the
destroyer offLobehgula, his moral sense
revolts against accepting the divine origin
of, the Hebrew writings which exult over
the massacre of tie Amalekites. In the
doctrine of eternal torment he is an out
and-out unbelieyer.r' Upon many questions
relating to the other world his one word
is agnosco-"I do not know" But on
the question of hell he is quite sure he
knows, and he knows that 1t is not true
Indeed, 1t is his one negative Dogma
which he holds with astonishing vigor
and gertrude. 1t conflicts with his funda-
mental conception of the nature of things
Whatever may be or may not be, that
cannot be.
1t may appear strange to those who
only realize Mr.. Rhodes as a successful
empire-builder. or a modern Midas, at
whose touch everything turns to gold, to
hear that the great Afrikander is much
given to bordering seriously questions