The same theologian has published several pamphlets of sermons; Evangelische Reden in Schwerer Zeit. The general theme remains the same. "We have been compelled to accept war" (1, p. 5); "We are fighting for our Kultur against the absence of Kultur—for German morality against barbarism—for the free German personality, attached to God, against the instincts of the disorderly masses" (1, p. 7). "If God be for us, who can be against us?"[35] "Now if ever there was a just cause assuredly it is ours" (1, p. 9). "War is a duty only when it is undertaken for legitimate defence.... Let us thank God that in the present war our state of legitimate defence is so secure and so evident, and that it is almost every day stayed up by fresh proofs; also we have unshakable confidence in our right and in the purity of our conscience" (2, pp. 38-9).
Here is a sermon of a somewhat peculiar kind. Herr Busch, having explained that Germany is like a peaceful stroller who suddenly finds himself attacked by two assassins, and then by a third (p. 5), declares that "in spite of all the German soldiers love their enemies." "God be thanked," he says, "we have already read of most touching examples in the newspapers. A German sergeant-major, who had been obliged to have a man and woman shot, in Belgium, after a council of war, adopted their only child, a little girl of two or three years; for he was himself without children; as his regiment soon afterwards left for Eastern Prussia, and was passing through his own town, he took the child to give it to his wife" (p. 9). Pray God—we might add, whose civilization is only Belgian—that there are not too many married men without children among the soldiers of the Kaiser, for they have a way of making orphans in order to adopt them which would cost our country dear.
Herr Correvon, pastor of the Reformed Church (French-speaking) in Frankfort-on-Main, preached a sermon on the 9th August, 1914, on the text: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" His arguments amount to this: Germany, having the right on her side, will have God on her side also. He naturally speaks of "the firm and admirable speech of the Chancellor, a man whom I can only compare with a Duplessis-Mornay, the minister of Henri IV" (p. 11). Then, having summarized the Emperor's speech, he cried: "To solve the alarming problem of these social questions ... it needed only the potent gesture with which the God who is always the strong city, the 'feste Burg' of Germany, the God of Luther, the God of Paul Gerhard and Sebastian Bach, has pronounced the terrible and perhaps the liberating word: 'You wish for war, you shall have it'!"
We see that from the very first days of the war, before any one could have verified the statements of the Chancellor, the Protestant pastors of Germany, even those of foreign origin, unhesitatingly accepted the official assertions. Is it as pastors that they stand forth as the stern defenders of the rights of truth? Are they not rather spiritless courtiers, we might almost say like the sheep of Panurge?
The Catholic Priests and Rabbis.
The Catholic priests have given proofs of equal docility. Mgr. the Cardinal Felix von Hartmann, Archbishop of Cologne, says in The Divine Providence, a pastoral letter read on the 25th of January, 1915:—
"Our warriors have gone forth to the bloody conflict, with God, for King and Country! With God, in the conflict which has been forced upon us, the fight for the salvation and the liberty of our dear German land; with God, in the war for the sacred possessions of Christianity and its beneficent civilization. And what exploits have not our warriors accomplished, under the protection of God, under the leadership of their wonderful chiefs, the Emperor and the German Princes, exploits whose glory shall shine in times to come! And more, what precious treasures of devotion, of love for one's neighbour, and of nobility, has not this war revealed, in our country as on the field of battle!"
The curate August Ritzl, however, falls into the sin of pride.
"Kultur has received an unheard-of impulse in Germany; the human spirit has subjected the most diverse forces of nature.... A glance at the map shows us the German Empire as the centre of Europe. On all sides, near and far, enemies are intent on the ruin of our country. To the east the giant empire of Russia threatens us—to the west, violent France, still strong despite her moral decay—allied with English perfidy and Belgian cruelty; Japan, Serbia, and Egypt have also declared war upon us" (pp. 26-27).