THE PRUSSIAN HOLY GHOST
The Prussic acid had permeated every vein and artery of the Lutheran
Church in Germany. Whatever religious influence that could be brought
to bear on the Danes was used; but they look with suspicion on any
mixture of religion and politics. Besides, their kind of Lutheranism
is more liberal than the German. With the proper apologies I must
admit that they are not, at present, easily accessible to any
religious considerations that will interfere with their individual
comfort. The union between the Lutherans in Denmark and the Lutherans
in Germany is not close. The Danes will not accept the doctrine,
preached in Germany, that Martin Luther was the glorious author of
the war, and that victory for Germany must be in his name! I had many
friends in Germany. One, a Lutheran pastor, wrote in 1914:
'Your country, though pretending to be neutral, is against us, and
you, once dear friend, are against us. You are no longer a child of
light.'
The effect of the religious propaganda has been too greatly
underrated for the simple and illogical reason that religion, in the
opinion of the people of the outside world, moulded for long years by
the German school of philosophy, had concluded that religion had
ceased to be an influence in men's lives.
The Pope, because he had lost his temporal power, was effete,
reduced to the position of John Bunyan's impotent giant! Lutheranism,
in fact, all Protestant sects, were giving up the ghost, under the
blows of Hæckel, Virchow, Rudolf Harnack and the rest of the school
of higher critics! These men laid the foundation stones for the
acceptance of Nietzsche--Schopenhauer being outworn--and the learned
as well as the more ignorant of the cultured seemed to think that, as
German scholars had settled the matter, faith in Christianity was
only the prejudice of the weak.
The Kaiser knew human nature better than this. While he believed in
his Prussian Holy Ghost--Napoleon had his star--he was not averse to
seeing the spiritual foundations of the world, especially the
dogmatic part, which supported Christianity, disintegrated.
Discussing the effect of this, I was forced, in March of 1918, to say
publicly, 'The Kaiser is the greatest enemy to Christianity in
Europe.' The reception of many protests from apparently sincere
persons confirmed me in my belief that the propaganda had been more
insidious than most of us believed. Let us turn now to the effect of
the ruthless propaganda in Germany itself. Note this letter:
'You, I can almost forgive, because, as I have told you often,
you dwell religiously in darkness; but your Protestant country,
which owes its best to us, I cannot forgive. In the name of
Bethlehem, you kill our sons, and corrupt our cousins, Karl and
Bernhard, whom you know in America. Karl, when he was in my house
last week, was insolent; he dared to say that the Germans in
America were Americans, that, if Martin Luther sympathised with
our glorious struggle, he was in hell! This is wild American
talk; but I fear that too many of our good people in America have
been "Yankeefied" and lost their religion. However, our glorious
Kaiser has not been idle all these years; the good Germans in
your misled country, not bought by English gold, will arise
shortly and demand that no more ammunition shall be sent to be
used against their relatives. I saw your relation, Lagos, in
Fiume; he cares nothing for Luther or the Prussian cause, but he
is only a Hungarian, with Irish blood, and he will only speak of
his Emperor respectfully, and say nothing against our enemies in
America; his son has been killed in Russia; it is a judgment upon
a man who is so lukewarm. The Austrian Emperor is forced to help
us; he, too, is tainted with the blood of anti-Christ. I have
heard that, when the war broke out, and they told him, he said:
"I suppose we shall fight those damned Prussians again!" Was this
jocose? Lagos laughed; it is no time to laugh; Karl and Bernhard
will go back to where they belong, in Pennsylvania, accursed for
their treachery,--vipers we have cherished, false to the
principles of Luther.'
An honest man, sincere enough, with no sense of humour, and a very
good friend until one contradicted his Pan-Germanism. One might
differ from him, with impunity, on any other question! 'Our pulpits
are thundering for the Lord, Luther, and a German victory!'
There had been a movement in England for a union of the Anglican
Church with the Lutheran branch of Protestantism in Denmark. It may
have been extended to Norway and Sweden as well, but I do not know.
There was much opposition on the part of the Germanised Lutherans:
'It would be giving up the central principle of Lutheranism to submit
to re-consecration and reordination by the Anglican Bishops. It would
be as bad as going to Rome or Russia or Abyssinia for Holy Orders. In
Denmark, especially, Luther, through Bergenhagen, had cut off the
falsely-claimed Apostolical succession. How could a national Church
remain national and become English?'
If I remember rightly, Pastor Storm, a clergyman greatly
distinguished for his character, learning, and breadth of view, was
in favour of such a union; he did not think it meant the
Anglicanising of the Lutheran Church. Men like Pastor Storm were
placed in the minority. The Germans were against it. Bishop Rördam,
the primate, Bishop of Zeeland, told me that German influence could
have had nothing to do with the decision; he said, 'It is true that,
if we wanted the Apostolical succession we could go either to Rome or
Russia. We are well enough as we are.'
When the attempt at the union failed, those pastors in Germany who
had watched the progress of the undertaking, rejoiced greatly. My
former friend, the Lutheran pastor, wrote:
'The Anglican Church is a great enemy to our German Kultur,
though German influence among its divines is becoming greater and
greater. I am obliged to you for the American books on St. Paul.
I read them slowly. I observe with joy that all the authorities
quoted are from German sources; surely such good men as the
authors of these books must see that your country is recreant to
the memories of the great Liberator, Martin Luther, in not
preaching against the export of arms from your country to the
Entente and the starving of our children! I thank you for the
books, and also for the one by the French priest, which is, of
course, worthless, as he sneers at Harnack. Later, these French
will know our Kultur with a vengeance! I gather from the volumes
of Canon Sheehan, as you call him, that the influence on clerical
education in Ireland is German. We have driven the French
influence from your universities, too, and the theological
schools of Harvard and Yale, thanks to the great Dr. Münsterberg,
who is opposed by a creature called Schofield, are German. The
power of our cultural Lutheranism is spreading against the errors
of Calvin in the College of Princeton, and the Roman Catholic
colleges in the States are becoming more enlightened by the
presence of men like the late Magistrate Schroeder, who may be
tolerated by us as the entering wedge of our Kultur. You have
been frank; I am frank with you. I have received your translation
of Goethe's _Knowest Thou the Land_ and _The Parish Priest's
Work_. As your ancient preceptor, I will say that both are bad.'
He is, after all, an honest man. Of course, I do not hear from him.
His two sons are dead, in Russia; he probably talks less of
'judgments' now, poor soul! He was only part of the machine of which
the Kaiser was the god!
The perverted state of mind of these honest men in whom a false
conscience has been carefully cultivated was amazing. On December
23rd, 1915, a Danish Bishop wrote a letter of good-will to a
colleague of his in Germany, saying, among other things, 'Even the
victor must now bear so many burdens that for a generation he must
lament and sigh under them.' The German pastor answered on December
27th:
'Do you remember, at the beginning of the war, you answered, to
my well-grounded words, "We must, we will, and we shall win,"
"How can that ever be?" The question has been answered; from
Vilna to Salonica, from Antwerp to the Euphrates, in Courland and
Poland, our armies are triumphant; we take our own wherever we
find it, and we hold it! I pity you,' the amiable pastor
continued; 'I have the deepest commiseration for you neutrals,
that you should remain outside of this wonderfully great
experience of God's glory, you, above all, who call yourselves
Scandinavians and are of the stock of the German Martin Luther.
You hold nought of the mighty things that God has now for a year
and a half been bestowing on the Fatherland. He who has little,
from him shall be taken away what he has. This war is not a
_kaffeeklarch_, and the work of a soldier is not embroidery. Our
Lord God, who let His son die on the Cross is not the Chairman of
a tea party, and He who came to bring, not peace, but a sword, is
not a town messenger. He lives, He reigns, He triumphs! The chant
of the Bethlehem angels, "peace on earth" is as veritable as
when it was for the first time heard. There lay on the manger the
Infant who as a Man was to conquer, that He might give peace to
earth. Our Germans, who in 1870 bled, died and conquered, won for
their own country and Scandinavia and Central Europe forty-four
years of peace. For these nations and for a more permanent peace
in this world our country is battling to-day. Gloria! Victoria!
We will throw down our arms only when we have conquered, that
this peace may reign.'
Bishop Koch, of Ribe--Jacob Riis's old town in Denmark--was the
writer of the first letter. It is not necessary to name the writer of
the second; his name is legion! It is not for the right, for the
defence of the poor, the helpless, the forsaken, for the old woman,
pitifully weeping, in the hands of the bloody supermen, to whom,
according to this pious pastor, Christ sent the sword, that Germany
may rule, and force her dyes, and her 'by-products,' and her
ruthless, selfish brutality on the world. If John the Baptist lived
to-day, and had asked these good pastors to follow him in the real
spirit of Christianity, one may be sure that they would have found
some excuses for the energetic Salome, who gloated over the
precursor's head.
Frequently the German pastors made flying visits to Copenhagen--after
the war began--not in the old way, when in the summer they came, with
hundreds of their countrymen, bearing frugal meals, and wearing long
cloaks and cocks' feathers in their hats. The day of the very cheap
excursion had passed. Now, they came to 'talk over' things, to assure
their Danish brethren of the stock 'of Luther' that it was a crime to
be neutral.
I had gone to the house of a very distinguished Lutheran clergyman,
Professor Valdemar Ammundsen, to listen to a 'talk' by Pasteur
Soulnier, of the Lutheran Church in Paris: Mr. Cyril Brown, the keen
observer and clever writer, accompanied me. We were struck with the
evidences of Christian charity and breadth of kindness shown by
Pasteur Soulnier. He had only words of praise for his Catholic
brethren in France; there was no word of bitterness or hatred in his
discourse; but his voice broke a little when he spoke of Rheims, and
he seemed like old Canon Luçon, the guardian of that beloved
cathedral, who cannot understand that men can be such demons as the
destroyers have shown themselves to be. We were late for dinner, and
Mr. Brown and I stepped into a restaurant of a position sufficiently
proper for diplomatic patronage, to dine.
The day after, as I was taking my walk, accompanied by my private
secretary, a man took off his hat and addressed me. He spoke English
with an accent.
'Pardon me; I do not know your name; but I know your friend, Pastor
Lampe, one of the most learned of our young divines; I have seen you
talking to him; I likewise recognised your companion at dinner last
night, Mr. Cyril Brown; he is an American well known in Berlin. My
name is Pastor X. I was formerly of Bremen. May I have a few words
with you?'
'Certainly,' I said, interested, 'if you will walk to
Friedericksberg.'
'Part of the way, sir,' he said.
My secretary whispered,--'Another spy? Shall I pump him?'
We had been frequently followed. Only a short time before, when I had
escorted my wife and Frau Frederika Hagerup, lady-in-waiting to Queen
Maud of Norway, for a short walk, we had been closely followed, by
eavesdroppers. At the corner of the Amaliegade and Saint Anna's
place, just opposite the Hotel King of Denmark, men had crawled up
within earshot, and one had accompanied us the whole distance. Was
this a similar case?
'Spy?' I said in French. 'Well let him talk!'
My young secretary shook his head; his way of dealing with suspected
spies was to wring their necks, if possible. From a long experience
with spies, it is my conclusion that much money is wasted on them.
Some are very agreeable, and give the party of the second part much
amusement. The German pastor, in his rusty black, looked so
respectable, too! He took the right, which showed that he did not
understand that I was a Minister. A well brought up German, who knew
my rank, would have taken my left side even if he were about to
strangle me!
'Bitte,' I said, 'but speak English!'
'I must beg pardon,' he answered; 'I could not forbear to tell you
what I thought of your conversation at the restaurant last night. I
should have interrupted you, but I was in the middle of my dinner.'
_His_ sacred dinner; ours did not count.
'I heard you say to Mr. Cyril Brown that the German nation at present
is the greatest enemy to Christianity in the world.'
'No, no, Herr Pastor,' I interrupted; 'I said that the Emperor
William is the worst enemy of Christianity in the world.'
'Ah, it is the same thing. You Americans call yourselves Christians,'
he broke out, 'and yet your bombs from Bethlehem have shattered my
son's leg and they killed thousands of our children. Your nation is
Protestant. You ought to be with us against impious France and
idolatrous Italy--I spit on Italy--the _cocotte_ of the nations, the
handmaid of the Papish prostitute of Rome! And yet you say that our
most Christian nation is not Christian! How can you say it? We are
not at war, yet you treat us as enemies!'
'We shall soon be at war. The Ambassador of the United States at
Berlin is sending Americans out of that city. He feels, evidently,
that, in spite of his influence with the Chancellor, you will begin
your U-boat outrages, and then we must be at war! That is plain. But
I think you have said enough. Herr Pastor, good-bye!'
'No, no,' he said. 'Answer me one question: why do you say that we
Germans are un-Christian? Our Christianity is the most beautiful, the
most learned, the most cultured!'
The young are relentless critics; I knew that my secretary was
calling me names for 'picking up' this strange German clergyman in
the street. Moreover, the secretary was beautifully attired; his
morning coat was perfect; his tall hat tilted back at the right
degree, and the triple white carnation in his buttonhole was a sight
to see. (Dear chap! he is in the greasy automobile service in
Flanders now!) And his cane! (If you walk out without a cane in
polite Copenhagen, you are looked on as worse than nude.) Fancy! To
be seen walking with a threadbare German pastor with a bulbous
umbrella! He groaned; he knew that I would pause on the brink of an
abyss for a little refreshing theological conversation!
'You cannot deny, Herr Pastor,' I said, 'that you people in Germany
swear by Harnack, that Strauss's _Life of Jesus_ is a book that you
look on with great admiration, that much of the foolish "higher
criticism" like the attacks on Saint Luke,[10] which Sir William
Ramsay has so carefully refuted, and all the sneering at the
fundamentals of Christianity have come from Germany, with the
approval of the Emperor.'
[10] _The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the
New Testament_, by Sir William M. Ramsay. Hodder and Stoughton.
'There are no English scientific theologians. I do not know your
Ramsay. We are learned; we study; we see many of the Christian myths
in an allegorical sense, but yet we adore the German God, who is with
us, and we believe in Christ, though our learned ones may dissipate
much that the populace hold. There must be a broad law for the
Christian divine; a narrow one for the humble believer. We may not
accept miracles, we of the learned, but we may not disturb the belief
of the people in them. Culture must come from the top. The Catholics
among us still accept the miracles, but they are most retrograde of
the Germans. We are gaining upon them. It is the _Zeitgeist_; when we
have conquered, with their help, we shall teach them the real lesson
of Christianity! The German God will not brook idolatry. Our
scientists disprove myths, but we work in the line of Luther still.
He disproved myths!'
'I do not hold a brief for Martin Luther,' I said, 'but I think that
he would have cursed any man who denied the divinity of Christ. You
talk of a German God. He is not a Christian God, and I repeat to you
what you heard me say to my friend in the restaurant.'
'It is well, sir,' he said, 'to hear this coming from an American who
defends the starving of our children and the supplying of arms to
slaughter us. We have God on our side--the German God. We only!'
'Good day, sir,' I said; 'you corroborate my impression about your
Christianity!'
I took off my hat, and crossed the street. He stood still; 'These
Americans are rude!' my secretary heard him say.
This would seem impossible to me--if I had not been a part of the
episode; if it seems impossible to you--the result probably of some
misunderstanding on my part--let me quote a few examples of the
result of the Prussian propaganda among a people whom we considered,
at least, honest and not un-Christian. But, first: on the Long Line
for my usual walk with Mr. Myron Hofer, one of the first Americans to
rush from his post at the Legation and join the Aviation Corps, I saw
the pastor again. Mr. Hofer saw him coming towards us, and said:
'You ought not to stand in the wind, if that man speaks to you; let
us go on.'
'Go on,' I said, 'but come back to rescue me in a minute or two.'
'Excellency,' the pastor said, 'I have heard from Pastor Lampe who
you are. Forgive me for addressing you!' And he passed on, hat in
hand.
What can one make of this bigotry and Phariseeism? Have these
qualities developed only since the war? Will they disappear after the
war? 'And the devils besought him, saying: If thou cast us out hence,
send us unto the herd of swine. And he said to them: Go. But they
going out went into the swine, and behold the whole herd ran
violently down a steep place into the sea: and they perished in the
waters.'
We all know that London was an unfortified city. Read this, from the
_Evangelische-lutherische Kirchenzeitung_, written in 1915. It is an
answer to the truthful charge that children, helpless women, old men,
civilians going quietly about their business, had been slaughtered by
the pitiless rain of death from the skies. The Danish Lutherans,
among whom this pious sheet had been circulated with a view to
exciting their sympathies, did not accept this.
'London has ceased to be a city without the defence of
fortifications; it is filled with such numbers of aeroplanes and
anti-aircraft guns, that, as we are all aware, the Zeppelins can
attack it at night only. To attack London is to make an offensive
on a den of murderers.'
'If you ask me,' says the _Protestenblatt_, Number 18, 'how shall I
build up the kingdom of God,' my answer is: 'Be a good German! Stand
fast by the Fatherland. Do your duty and fill your mission. _Seek to
submerge yourself in German spirit, in German mind._ Be German in
piety and will, which simply means, be true, faithful, and valiant.
Help as best you can towards our victory; help to make our Fatherland
grow and wax mighty.'[11]
[11] Dr. J. P. Bang's translation. Doctor Bang deserves well of all
lovers of freedom for his translation into Danish of typical
sermons from German pastors possessed of the spirit of hatred. Dr.
Bang is a professor of theology in the University of Copenhagen. It
ought to be remembered that the University of Copenhagen, in a
neutral country geographically part of Germany, made no protest
against the audacious volume.
It is true that there are Protestants in Germany who will not accept
the 'Fatherland' as God and eternal life or as a life continued in
the memories of later generations, as a Hessian peasant put it in a
letter written from the Front. His attitude shows how barren all this
rhetoric seems to the unhappy soldier who must obey. Those who knew
the lives of truly religious Germans before the war must believe that
these arrogant, feverish, diabolical utterances do not represent
them. The Lutheran households where the fear of God and the love of
one's neighbour reigned cannot have entirely disappeared; the old
Christian spirit must fill some hearts. But here is a man, a Lutheran
divine, whose pious books have 'circulated in the Army in millions of
copies.' He is a very great clergyman; if you saw him in the streets
of Lübeck, or Hamburg, or Berlin, many hats would be raised; even
officers in the Army would greet him with respect. He is
Geheimkonsistorialrath! 'Likewise,' he writes, in his book, _Strong
in the Lord_--'the blessings of the Reformation are at stake. Shall
French ungodliness, shall Russian superstition, shall English
hypocrisy rule the world? Never! For the blessing of our faith, for
the freedom of our conscience, for our Germanism and for our Gospel,
we shall fight and struggle and make every sacrifice. _Ein' feste
Burg ist unser Gott._ And, if the world were full of devils, we shall
maintain our Empire!'
According to Dr. Conrad, Germany is a great surgeon. She must cut;
she must even kill, if necessary, the nation that stands in the way
of her beneficient Kultur!
So strenuously has the name of Martin Luther been made use of by
these fanatics, that the fact is lost sight of in Germany, that the
question is not one of religion. There is scarcely a war even in
modern times with which religion had so little to do as this; but to
hear these shriekers from the pulpit, one would think that Martin
Luther was the instigator of the war and that the Kaiser is his
prophet! What the Catholic population in Germany--in Bavaria, in
Silesia--what the Jews in Berlin and Munich think of all this, we
have not yet discovered. A Cardinal holding the standard of Luther,
with two Rabbis gracefully toying with its gilded tassels is a sight
the preachers offer to us when they appeal to Luther as the
representative of Germany. Luther was no democrat; he would scarcely
have approved of President Wilson's speeches; but yet he would not
have worshipped the trinity of the Kaiser, the Crown Prince and the
Prussian Holy Ghost as the Godhead!
Think of the tremendous force that must have perverted these 'men of
God!' Who can help believing in the miracle of the swine driven into
the sea after this, or in the old Latin adage, 'Whom the Gods wish to
destroy, they first make mad,' or in Shakespeare's 'Lilies that
fester smell far worse than weeds?' Religion is made a mark to cover
avarice and arrogant ambition, Christianity, to veil a god more
material than the Golden Calf.
The learned Danes answered the shrieks of the preachers, and the
specious reasonings of such scientists as Wilhelm von Bode, Wundt,
Richard Dehmel, Wilhelm Röntgen, Ernest Haeckel, Sudermann, etc.,
with dead silence, erudition and art had been corrupted. 'In Italy,'
Christopher Nyrop,[12] the Dane, says, 'which, when the manifesto of
the German learned appeared, was not among the belligerent States,
the amazement and the disappointment were so great that the
ninety-three signers, "representatives of German Kultur," were named
_Verräter der deutschen Kultur_, traitors to German Kultur.' It was
only necessary to change 'Vertreter' to 'Verräter.' And among them
were Max Reinhart, Harnack, Gerhard Hauptmann, Siegfried Wagner!
[12] Devoted to France, the friend of M. Jusserand; a great romance
philologer.
The wonder and amazement were even greater when there was no protest
from the Catholics or the Lutherans of Germany against the
inexcusable outrage on Louvain or Rheims. The remonstrances of the
Pope were unheeded. It was the policy of the German Government to
suppress them as far as possible. It wanted to give the impression
that the Holy Father was theirs, and too many thoughtless persons
fell in with this idea. That the German Catholics were misinformed
by Bethmann-Hollweg and the War Office makes their position worse.
The proofs offered by the Dean of the Cathedral of Rheims proved that
this horror, the destruction of the sacred symbol of the French
nation, was not 'a military necessity.'