Had Doctor Bang set forth as his own views, as a neutral, the amazing
utterances which make up the bulk of his compilation, no one here or
abroad would have believed that he described a true condition. But he
was smarter than that. He was mainly content to repeat literal
translations of indubitable prayers, poems, sermons, addresses--written
and spoken statements of contemporary German clergymen, German
professors and German statesmen.
In further support of the point which I have been striving to make I
mean to take the liberty here of adding a few more extracts from the
first American edition of _Hurrah and Hallelujah_, in each instance
giving credit to the original German author of the same.
For instance, the Reverend Doctor Vorwerk, who appears to specialise in
prayers, begins one invocation with this sentence, which is especially
interesting in that the good pastor couples the Cherubim, the Seraphim,
and--guess what?--the Zeppelins in the same breath:
"Thou Who dwellest high above Cherubim, Seraphim and Zeppelins;
Thou Who art enthroned as a God of Thunder in the midst of
lightning from the clouds, and lightning from sword and cannon,
send thunder, lightning, hail and tempest hurtling upon our enemy;
bestow upon us his banners; hurl him down into the dark burial
pits!"
Another poet, Franz Philippi by name, in a widely circulated work called
_World-Germany_, delivers himself in part as follows:
"Formerly German thought was shut up in her corner; but now the
world shall have its coat cut according to German measure and, as
far as our swords flash and German blood flows, the circle of the
earth shall come under the tutelage of German activity."
Herr J. Suze, a prose writer, says with the emphasis of profound
conviction:
"The Germans are first before the Throne of God--Thou couldst not
place the golden crown of victory in purer hands."
On November 13, 1914, according to Doctor Bang, a German theological
professor preached an address which the _Berliner Lokal Anzeiger_
reproduced, with favourable editorial comment. Here is a typical
paragraph from this sermon:
"The deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war is 'the
German God.' Not the national God such as the lower nations
worship, but 'Our God,' Who is not ashamed of belonging to us, the
peculiar acquirement of our heart."
The Reverend H. Francke is a pastor in the city of Liegnitz. From his
pulpit he delivered a series of so-called war sermons, which afterward,
at the request of the members of his flock, were printed in a book, the
cover of which was ornamented with the Iron Cross. And we find the
Reverend Francke adding his voice to the chorus thus:
"Germany is precisely--who would venture to deny it?--the
representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of
the most chastened Christianity."
The Reverend Walter Lehmann, pastor at the town of Hamberge, in
Holstein, went a trifle further. When he got out his book of war sermons
he published it under the title _About the German God_; and therein,
among other things, he said:
"This means that we go forth to war as Christians, precisely as
Christians, as we Germans understand Christianity; it means that we
have God on our side.... Can the Russians, the French, the
Serbians, the English, say this? No; not one of them. Only we
Germans can say it.... If God is for us who can be against us? It
is enough for us to be a part of God.... A
nation"--Germany--"which is God's seed corn for the future....
Germany is the centre of God's plans for the world.... That
glorious feat of arms forty-four years ago"--the Battle of
Sedan--"gives us courage to believe that the German soul is the
world's soul; that God and Germany belong to one another."
These are the concluding words of the Reverend Lehmann's book _About the
German God_:
"Oh, that the German God may permeate the world! Oh, that the
eternal victory may blossom before the God of the German soul!"
It will not do to slight the Herr Pastor Job Rump, lic., Doctor, of
Berlin. Hearken a moment to a word or two from one of Doctor Rump's
published pamphlets:
"A corrupt world, fettered in monstrous sin, shall, by the will of
God, be healed by the German nature.... Ye"--the Germans--"are the
chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the
peculiar people."
A learned and no doubt a pious professor, Herr G. Roethe, is credited
with this modest claim:
"While other nations are born, ripen and grow old, the Germans
alone possess the gift of rejuvenescence."
And so on and so forth, for two hundred and thirty-four pages of _Hurrah
and Hallelujah_. The run of the contents is quite up to sample. None of
us can object to these reverend gentlemen seeking to walk with God; what
we do object to is their undertaking to lead Him.