When her Kaiser and Germany's War Staff had determined to do evil, to
become world conquerors, and prepared a philosophy that would justify
the crimes necessary to win the goal, Germany then began to get rid
of any vestige of conscience that survived from the faith of Martin
Luther. It was not enough to control the philosophers and scholars, it
became necessary to popularize the new license to lawlessness, lust
and theft. Unfortunately, Germany was complicated by her treaties
with other nations as to the conduct of war. These treaties were a
thousand times more sacred than contracts of the merchant for a note
at his bank. Germany had solemnly covenanted to attack only armies,
and to safeguard and protect hospitals, schools, churches, with the
life and property of non-combatants. The Christian religion, also, as
presented by the German Luther, taught obligations involved in the Ten
Commandments. The new system of militarism, therefore, could enter
the mind of the German soldier only when the old ideas of the Ten
Commandments, duty, God, and the obligations to the weak, as taught by
Jesus, had been cast out. One of the crimes proscribed by civilized
states is the crime of teaching other men to do wickedness. But the
German Kaiser and War Staff have so far lost their souls that they have
deliberately written a text-book teaching men murder as a science.
FINALLY GERMANY ENTHRONED CRUELTY INSTEAD OF CHRIST'S LAW OF
PITY
Having substituted the Prussian theory of the State for Christianity,
having replaced the eternal God with the word Force, spelt with a
capital "F," having gotten the Devil all mixed up with God, until the
Kaiser planned Devil deeds and signed God's name to them, finally
Germany decided to slay humanitarianism, pity, sympathy, and regard for
the poor and weak. Nineteen centuries ago Jesus taught men that God
by His dear Son had identified Himself with the poor and the weak.
Taking a little child, Jesus said, "Take heed that ye offend not one of
my little ones." Christianity is kindness, and pity. Out of Christ's
teachings came the world's hospitals, the emancipation of slaves, homes
for the aged and the invalid, schools for orphans, hospitals for the
sick. Jesus' sympathy has journeyed like an angel of God across the
fields of the world, and God's sweet mercy has fallen like rain from
His heaven to cool men's fevered souls. Just in proportion as men have
gone towards God, they have gone towards pity and compassion. Florence
Nightingale and Augusta Stanley enter the smitten hospitals of the
Crimea; Mother Bickerdyke and all her associates are found on the
battle-fields of our Civil War; John Howard organizes the Prison Relief
movement. Everywhere society climbs upward upon the golden rounds of
sympathy, and philanthropy.
But Germany despises kindness. She now bombs hospitals, sinks passenger
ships, and the malignancy of her cruelties has horrified savages in the
South Sea Islands. Over against the teachings of Jesus therefore put
the German frightfulness. Read the article by that American physician,
who left Germany last summer by way of Switzerland. Note that when a
train of English soldiers passed through the town, a train loaded with
prisoners packed in freight cars, without sanitation, wounded men who
had been without food or drink for three days, men who, with black
lips, begged the German women for water, that these women held water
just out of reach of these English soldiers, and then spilling it on
the ground, spat in the faces of these wounded men!
When Germans were marching into a Belgian village, a German captain
ordered the villagers to go into the church. The houses were then
searched. Unfortunately no weapons were found, and therefore there was
no excuse for looting the town and then burning the buildings. The
diary of a German soldier says that his captain showed him a window
opening into the cellar of a Belgian house, and told him to put a gun
in through the window. A few minutes later the captain "discovered"
the gun, and taking the weapon into the church told all the villagers
that concealed weapons had been found, and they must all be shot and
the village destroyed. The German burglar's life was sacred, but the
honest householder's life and that of his family were as nothing,
losing all rights because the German burglar has broken open the door.
This new philosophy of militarism teaches that crimes become virtues
if they promote the interests of the Fatherland. To accept the
hospitality, to plot arson, bombing and sedition; to play false to
all the higher considerations of honour, through the treachery of
Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, is beautiful and glorious for a German.
The blackest deeds become sacred because they promote German interests.
So thoroughly has this philosophy of loyalty to the Fatherland
permeated the German soul in every part of the world, that--despite
multitudes of large-hearted, open-minded American citizens who came
hither from German homes to better their political and industrial
conditions, and who, Germans as they are, gratefully appreciate and are
loyal to the America that has welcomed them--there are also thousands
of German-Americans about us from whose lips you cannot obtain one word
of criticism of the blackest deeds of murder and arson and treachery by
Germany's agents in this country, or of Germany abroad. Whatever is
done for the Fatherland is right, no matter what crime is involved.
It is precisely to this type that Jesus addressed His words about the
light in men that had become darkness, and therefore "how great is that
darkness." By this route Germans have gone downward towards spiritual
apostasy.