Law and order were different from the arbitrament of the sword. War was a violation of all that was best and noblest in humanity, and he must walk along the lines he had marked out.
Still he could not get away from the spirit of the times. The one subject talked about in restaurants, in clubs, in offices, and in the streets was this bloody carnage which was convulsing Europe. Almost every vehicle that passed was placarded with a call to war. Every newspaper he opened was full of news of the war. Even the religious papers seemed to have forgotten that the Gospel of Christ was the Gospel of Peace.
It was true that here and there were letters from correspondents protesting against the whole horrible business, but these were in the main, at a discount.
After he had been in London a few days, he happened to get hold of a German newspaper, and there he read the German side of the question. This newspaper pleaded that the Kaiser never wanted war. That he had struggled against war, and that during the whole of his reign, war had been kept at arm's length. If the Kaiser loved war, the paper urged, the country would not have remained at peace so long, seeing that never since 1870 had Germany drawn the sword. Now that war was forced upon them, the people were only doing what they were obliged to do.
One evening he dined at a small hotel, and, having found his way to the smoke-room after dinner, he met a man from Cornwall with whom he was slightly acquainted.
They talked about other things at first, but were eventually led to the one subject of the times.
"Do you know," said the man from Cornwall, Richards by name, "that I heard a strange story the other day?"
"What story?"
"A man with whom I am acquainted, a financier from Alsace, told me that he, with two other bankers, were some weeks ago dining with the Kaiser; and the Kaiser spoke to them about the mission of Germany. He said that a great part of Europe was paralysed by materialism, that immorality had eaten out the best life of France, and was fast finding its way into the vitals of England. That Germany was called by God to purify Europe, and that he who was anointed by God to reign over Germany, felt it his duty to fight against this scourge of materialism and immorality. In no other way could Europe be saved from infidelity and ruin, and that he, the Kaiser, was raised up as a scourge of God. That just as Jesus Christ drove the hucksters and money-lenders out of the Temple when He was on earth, so was he, the Kaiser, called upon to cleanse Europe, and that this war was God's crusade to bring back Europe to purity and righteousness."
"Your informant told you this?"