5. Here we now stand

5. Here we now stand

Here we now stand . . . insultingly unequaled by the woeful result of our majestic undertaking, timidly bashful before the scorn of our own church in the alien state far back from us, ecstatic targets for the bitter venom of the British dominator and his mission-accomplice propaganda and weapon traders.

Here we now stand . . . the elite of the able-bodied manpower of the Voortrekker Community in Natal. There is not much more than our 470 left. In Sooi Laager, back at the Little Tugela, and elsewhere, are our wives and children left in the hands of old men and young fellows . . . with scarcely enough ammunition to shoot a few warning shots. What was left, we mostly have here with us. If this poor wagon laager collapses around us in the dark hour of decision, no one of us will return, and, two days later, then there will in any case be nobody left to peer far off for our return.

Yet, here we stand . . . today, 9 December 1838, and again at dusk another day shift nearer to the hour of decision and the valley of the shadow of death, every moment aware of our impotence and helplessness before the dreadful judgement that can burst out around every corner. What more is there which we can sacrifice?
Therefore: “My brothers and fellow citizens, here we now stand . . . ” in the dusk, an insignificant handful enclosed in a bitter fragile ring of “kakebeen” wagons surrounded by many thousands of savages of whose unquenchable blood thirst we have no uncertainty; determined to pass the night tomorrow evening again, and then above it also a day shift nearer to the hour of decision. Let Him who calls decide.
There lies an undeniable remembrance to Martin Luther’s “Here I stand. I have no alternative. So help me God.” But also St. Paul’s “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free . . . ” (Galathians 5:1) and especially his “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth . . . and . . . taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Ephesians 6:14-16).

No human stands more firmly than he who “stands before the holy God of heaven and earth,” because he is called thereto like St. Paul and Luther.