KAISER'S THEOLOGY
And thus it goes through the centuries, until the Messiah announced and foreshadowed by the Prophets and Psalmists shall at last appear. The greatest revelation of God in the world! For He Himself appeared in the body of His Son; Christ is God, God in human form. He saved us. He inspires us, we are led to follow Him, we feel His fire burning within us, His pity strengthening us, His dissatisfaction destroying us, but also His intercession saving us. Sure of victory, building solely upon His word, we go through work, scorn, grief, misery, and death, for in Him we have the revealed word of God, and God never lies.
That is my view of this question. The Word, especially for us of the Evangelical faith, has become everything on account of Luther; and Delitzsch, as a good theologian, should not forget that our great Luther taught us to sing and believe: "Das Wort sie sollen lassen stehn" ("The Word they must allow to stand").
It is self-evident that the Old Testament contains a large number of parts which are of purely human-historical character and not "God's revealed Word." These are purely historical descriptions of events of all sorts, which occur in the life of the people of Israel in the domain of politics, religion, morals, and spiritual life.
For instance, the giving out of the Law on Mount Sinai can be looked upon only symbolically as having been inspired by God, since Moses had to turn to a revival of laws perhaps known of old (possibly drawn from the Code of Hammurabi), in order to bring coherence and solidarity to the framework of his people, which was loose and little capable of resistance. Here the historian may perhaps find a connection, either in sense or words, with the laws of Hammurabi, the friend of Abraham, which may be logically right; but this can never affect the fact that God had inspired Moses to act thus, and, to that extent, had revealed Himself to the people of Israel.
Therefore, my view is that our good professor should rather avoid introducing and treating of religion as such in his lectures before our association, but that he may continue, unhindered, to describe whatever brings the religion, customs, and so on of the Babylonians, and so on, into relation with the Old Testament.
As far as I am concerned, I am led by the above to the following conclusion:
(a) I believe in one only God.
(b) We men need, in order to teach Him, a Form, especially for our children.
(c) This Form has been, up to now, the Old Testament, as we now know it. This Form will be essentially changed by research, inscriptions, and excavations; but that will cause no harm, nor will the fact that, thereby, much of the halo of the Chosen People will disappear, cause any harm. The kernel and content remain always the same: God and His influence.
Religion was never a result of science, but something flowing from the heart and being of man, through his relations with God.
With heartiest thanks and many greetings, I remain always
Your sincere friend,
(Signed) Wilhelm I. R.
[CHAPTER IX]
Army and Navy
My close relations with the army are a matter of common knowledge. In this direction I conformed to the tradition of my family. Prussia's kings did not chase cosmopolitan mirages, but realized that the welfare of their land could only be assured by means of a real power protecting industry and commerce. If, in a number of utterances, I admonished my people to "keep their powder dry" and "their swords sharp," the warning was addressed alike to foe and friend. I wished our foes to pause and think a long time before they dared to engage with us. I wished to cultivate a manly spirit in the German people; I wished to make sure that, when the hour struck for us to defend the fruits of our industry against an enemy's lust of conquest, it should find a strong race.
In view of this I attached high value to the educational duty of the army. General compulsory military service has a social influence upon men in the mass equaled by nothing else. It brings together rich and poor, sons of the soil and of the city; it brings acquaintanceship and mutual understanding among young people whose roads, otherwise, would lead them far apart; the feeling that they are serving one idea unites them.
And think what we made out of our young men! Pale town boys were transformed into erect, healthy, sport-hardened men; limbs grown stiff through labor were made adroit and pliable.
I stepped direct from brigade commander to king—to repeat the well-known words of King Frederick William III. Up to then I had climbed the steps of an officer's career. I still think with pleasure of my pride when, on the 2d of May, 1869, during the spring parade, I first stood in the ranks before my grandfather. Relations with the individual man have always seemed valuable to me, and, therefore, I particularly treasured the assignments, during my military service, where I could cultivate such relations. My activities as commander of a company, a squadron, and a battery, likewise as head of a regiment, are unforgettable to me.
I felt at home among my soldiers. In them I placed unlimited trust. The painful experiences of the autumn of 1918 have not diminished this trust. I do not forget that a part of the German people, after four years of unprecedented achievements and privations, had become too ill to withstand being corrupted by foes within and without. Moreover, the best of the Germans lay under the green sod; the others were thrown into such consternation by the events of the revolution which had been held to be impossible that they could not spur themselves to act.
Compulsory military service was the best school for the physical and moral toughening of our people. It created for us free men who knew their own value. From these an excellent corps of noncommissioned officers was formed; from the latter, in turn, we drew our Government officials, the like of whom, in ability, incorruptibility and fidelity to duty no other nation on earth can show.