Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/98

84 and, strange though it may appear to those who only know him as the destroyer of Lobengula, his moral sense revolts against accepting the Divine origin of the Hebrew writings which exult over the massacre of the Amalekites. In the doctrine of eternal torment he is an out-and-out unbeliever. Upon many questions relating to the other world his one word is Agnostic—“I do not know.” But on the question of Hell he is quite sure he knows, and he knows that it is not true. Indeed, it is his one negative dogma, which he holds with astonishing vigour and certitude. It conflicts with his fundamental conception of the nature of things. Whatever may be or may not be, that cannot be.

It may appear strange to those who only realise 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 pondering seriously questions which, in the rush and hurry of modern life, most men seldom give themselves time to ask, much less to answer. But as Mohammed spent much time in the solitude of his cave before he emerged to astonish the world with the revelation of the Koran, so Cecil Rhodes meditated much in the years while he was washing dirt for diamonds under the South African stars. He is still a man much given to thinking over things. He usually keeps three or four subjects going at one time, and he sticks to them. At present he has on his mind the development of Rhodesia, the laying of the telegraph line to Tanganyika, the Cape to Cairo railway, and the ultimate federation of South Africa. These four objects preoccupy him. He does not allow himself to be troubled with correspondence. He receives letters and loses them sometimes, but answers them never.

In the earlier days, before he was known, he kept his thoughts to himself. But he thought much; and the outcome of his thinking is making itself felt more and more every day in the development of Africa.

When Mr. Rhodes was an undergraduate at Oxford, he was profoundly impressed by a saying of Aristotle as to