DOCTOR DRYANDER'S INFLUENCE
During the first years of my military service at Potsdam I had felt deeply the inadequacy of the sermons, which often dealt only with dry dogmatic matter and paid too little attention to the person of Christ. In Bonn I became acquainted with Doctor Dryander, who made an impression on me lasting throughout my life. His sermons were free from dogma, the person of Christ was their pivotal point, and "practical Christianity" was brought into the foreground.
Later I brought him to Berlin and soon had him appointed to a post at the Cathedral and in my palace. Dryander was by my side for years, until long after the 9th of November, standing close to me spiritually, and bringing to me spiritual consolation. We often talked on religious matters and thrashed out thoroughly the tasks and the future of the Protestant Church. The views of Dryander—mild, yet powerful, clear, and of truly evangelical strength—made of him a pillar and an ornament of his Church, and a faithful co-worker with the Emperor, to whom he was closely bound, in the interests of the Church and its development.
Since the 9th of November, Doctor Dryander also has been exposed to persecutions, but he has stood his ground courageously; the hopes, beliefs, and trust of his King are with him and the Evangelical Church! The Church must again raise up the broken nation inwardly according to the gospel of "Ein'feste Burg ist unser Gott."
I cannot allow to pass without remark the influence exerted by the work—translated at my instigation—of the English missionary Bernard Lucas, entitled Conversations with Christ; as well as the sermons on Jesus by Pastor Schneller (Jerusalem), and the collections of sermons called The Old God Still Lives and From Deep Trouble, by Consistorial Councilor Conrad. These brought us much inspiration and comfort by their vital ability to absorb and hold readers and hearers.
The fact that I could deal with religious and church questions with complete objectivity "sine ira et studio" is due to my excellent teacher, Professor Doctor Hinzpeter, a Westphalian Calvinist. He caused his pupil to grow up and live with the Bible, eliminating, at the same time, all dogmatic and polemical questions; owing to this, polemics in religion have remained alien to me, and expressions like that autocratic one, "orthodox," are repulsive to me. As to my own religious convictions, I set forth what they were years ago, in a letter to my friend, Admiral Hollmann, made public at the time, part of which is reproduced at the end of this chapter.
I was enabled to bring joy to the hearts of my Catholic subjects when I presented the plot of ground known as the "Dormition," acquired by me from the Sultan in 1898 as a result of my sojourn in Jerusalem, to the German Catholics there. The worthy, faithful Father Peter Schmitz, representative of the Catholic Society in Jerusalem, expressed to me the heartfelt thanks of the German Catholics on the spot in eloquent words at the ceremony of taking possession.