To him they seemed a small people doomed, if they failed to defend themselves, to something like the treatment which Ireland had received.
It was therefore with surprise, almost with horror, that he listened for the first time to the superlative Imperialism of the Protestant Unionist party when he attended the prayer-meeting to which he had been invited.
The room was well filled with students, who joined heartily in the singing of 'Onward, Christian soldiers,' a hymn selected as appropriate for the occasion.

An address by the chairman, a Dublin clergyman, followed.

According to this gentleman the Boers were a psalm-singing but hypocritical nation addicted to slave-driving.

England, on the other hand, was the pioneer of civilization, and the nursing-mother of missionary enterprise.

It was therefore clear that all good Christians ought to pray for the success of the British arms.