“The powers of hell often prevail. That is true. I have again seen proof of that close to me,” replied Frederick thoughtfully.
The poor lady next questioned him about the two campaigns that he had passed through—the one with, the other against, Godfrey. He had to relate hundreds of details, and in doing so he was able to give the bereaved mother the same comfort that he once brought me back from the war in Italy, namely, that the lamented one had died a rapid and painless death. It was a long and a mournful visit. I also again recounted there all the details of the horrible cholera week, and my experiences on the Bohemian battlefields. Before we left, Aunt Cornelia took us into Godfrey’s room, where I wept bitter tears anew at the perusal of the letter which I have quoted above, and of which at a later period I begged a copy.
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“Now explain to me,” I said to Frederick, as we got into our carriage, which was in waiting in front of Aunt Cornelia’s villa, “why you asked the consistorial councillor——”
“To a conference with you? Do not you understand? That is to serve me as material for study. I want to hear once more—and this time to take note of—the arguments by which priests defend public murder. I put you forward as the leader in the fray. It better becomes a young lady to nourish a doubt from the Christian point of view as to the lawfulness of war than a ‘gallant colonel’!”
“But you know that my doubt is not from a religious, but a humanitarian point of view.”
“We must not lay this at all before the reverend consistorial councillor, or else the discussion would be transferred to a different field. The efforts after peace of free thinkers suffer from no internal inconsistency, but it is this very inconsistency existing between the maxims of Christianity and the orders of military authorities which I should like to hear explained by a military chaplain, i.e., a representative of militant Christianity.”
The clergyman was punctual in his arrival. The prospect was evidently an inviting one for him of having to preach a sermon of instruction and conversion. I on the contrary looked forward to the conversation with somewhat painful feelings, for the part assigned to me in it was a dishonest one. But, for the good of the cause to which Frederick had devoted his services henceforth, I was easily able to put some constraint on myself, and comfort myself with the proverb: “The end justifies the means”.
After the first greetings—we were all three seated on low, easy-chairs before the fire—the consistorial councillor began thus:—
“Allow me, dear lady, to enter on the object of my visit. The matter is to remove from your soul some scruples, which are not destitute of some apparent grounds, but which can easily be refuted as sophistical. You think, for example, that Christ’s command to love your enemies, and also the text, ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword,’ are inconsistent with the duties of a soldier, who no doubt is empowered to injure the enemy in body and life.”