"You English," he said, "are mad, mad, mad as March hares. What has come over you that you are so completely given over to suspicions quite unworthy of a great nation? What more can I do than I have done? I declared with all the emphasis at my command, in my speech at Guildhall, that my heart is set upon peace, and that it is one of my dearest wishes to live on the best of terms with England. Have I ever been false to my word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them but to those who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I feel and resent. To be forever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of friendship weighed and scrutinized with jealous, mistrustful eyes, taxes my patience severely. I have said time after time that I am a friend of England, and your Press—or at least a considerable section of it—bids the people of England refuse my proffered hand, and insinuates that the other holds a dagger. How can I convince a nation against its will?"

And then as if to impress upon the world the belief that he was chosen of God, the Kaiser repeatedly gave voice to such bombastic utterances as when to his son in Brandenburg, he declared: "I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a responsibility conferred upon me by God, and that it is, as is written in the Bible, my duty to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called upon to give an account; those who try to interfere with my task I shall crush."

THE "GOD-APPOINTED" HOHENZOLLERNS.

Again he expressed the same sentiment when he said: "It is a tradition of our House, that we, the Hohenzollerns, regard ourselves as appointed by God to govern and to lead the people, whom it is given us to rule, for their well-being and the advancement of their material and intellectual interests."

And finally in his address to the people in August, 1914, he said at the beginning of war: "A fateful hour has fallen for Germany. Envious peoples everywhere are compelling us to our just defence. The sword has been forced into our hands. I hope that if my efforts at the last hour do not succeed in bringing our opponents to see eye to eye with us and in maintaining the peace, we shall, with God's help, so wield the sword that we shall restore it to its sheath again with honor.

"War would demand of us an enormous sacrifice in property and life, but we should show our enemies what it means to provoke Germany. And now I commend you to God. Go to church and kneel before God, and pray for His help for our gallant army."

This is the picture of "Kaiser Bill" whose egotism gave expression to itself in 1910 when in a speech he said: "Considering myself as the instrument of the Lord, without heeding the views and opinions of the day, I go my way."

EMPEROR WILLIAM'S CHILDREN.

William II, Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia, was born January 27, 1859, succeeding his father, Emperor Frederick the III, in June, 1888. He married the Princess Augusta Victoria, of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, and had the following issue: Frederick William, Crown Prince, born May 6, 1882; William Eitel-Frederick, born 1883; Adalbert, born 1884; August, born 1887; Oscar, born 1888; Joachim, born 1890, and Victoria Louise, born 1892.

Crown Prince Frederick William is one of the remarkable figures of the war. A profound admirer of Napoleon he has always made a close study of that great French soldier, and has long been one of the leaders of the war-seeking element in Germany. The Crown Prince, who was born in 1882, is tall, slim and impulsive. The late Queen Victoria, his great grandmother, was his godmother.