Germany's inspiration seems to be that of the treacherous wolf.
Intellectually we cannot understand how a shepherd can watch wolves
tearing the throat of the lamb in the Belgian sheepfold and the French
sheepfold, while he stands by and waits until the wolf tears some
lambs and sheep in the American sheepfold. When a brave man has seen
a wolf tear the throat of one lamb he ought to leap from his place of
safety and take his place beside the lamb. Of course, the wolf has many
explanations to offer, but the explanations of the wolf do not interest
some men. There are some foul diseases, like slavery, that have to be
cut out by the surgery of war. Militarism and autocracy are cancers,
and God has anointed the surgeon with ointment, black and sulphurous.
But the surgeon's knife has to be heated red hot, that it may cauterize
the wounds, lest the patient bleed and die.
"We must choose," said Bernhardi, "between Napoleon and Jesus."
The people of the United States have chosen between Militarism and
Jesus. Our fathers chose eighteen centuries ago. They left the law of
the pack behind. They chose to become the sons of God, and lose their
lives that Christ's little ones might survive. Hospitals, reforms,
schoolhouses for children, reform acts, emancipation proclamations,
the Declaration of Independence, justice, and man's redemption are
the results. German militarism is the apotheosis of the law of the
wolf-pack, return to the club and the caveman. If she succeeds in a
return to brute force, her victory will be the most terrible calamity
that overwhelmed the earth since that event that Milton describes in
his story of the rebellion in heaven. Every editor and school-teacher,
every priest and minister, every patriot and parent, should drill into
the minds of children and youth the Kaiser's original charge and the
meaning thereof: "No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken.
Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Make yourselves
more frightful than the Huns under Attila." Strange, therefore, the
Germans feel so terribly because men call them Huns! Who understood
their real nature? The Kaiser. Who branded them on the forehead with a
red-hot iron, "Huns"? Their Kaiser. Whose bloody fingers were lifted
upon their heads when his mildewed lips christened them "Hun"? Their
Kaiser. Who likened the German soldiers to bloodhounds held upon the
leash as they strained forward to tear women and children in Belgium
and France? Their Kaiser. But Jesus said, Woe unto him that offends
against one of My little ones! And out of the whirlwind comes the voice
of an outraged God, saying to the invaders, "Here stay thy bloody
waves! Thus far, and no farther!"