One may observe, with a second glance at this cartoon, that though Fritz has reached very nearly to the tops of his two ladders, yet he will never get beyond the last rungs, even if he steadies himself and his supports sufficiently to get on to those rungs. For over his head there outthrusts a ledge. Could he surmount it, he might overlook the world, and one may call that ledge the universal conscience, which the artist has pictured elsewhere in different form. It is the last obstacle, and it is insurmountable. With his crimes and cruelties, it is unthinkable that Fritz should ever finish his climb, for the conscience of the world will not permit it.
And yet another point that the cartoon suggests. This climber, the typical German, is not the stuff of which successful climbers are made. Muscle is there, and a certain amount of brain, but success in an enterprise of such magnitude demands a soul, and for sign of that one may look in vain.
Culture at Wittenberg
ECCE Homo!
In the hideous record of what took place at Wittenberg, the fact which to me, personally, stands out in grotesque salience is the cowardice of the Hun doctors, who lied, incontinent, from the ravages of the pestilence which their negligence had provoked. In England, before the war, Hun doctors were exalted above our own. That we owe much to their indefatigable patience and research cannot be denied. To belittle their achievements, especially in bacteriology, would be fatuous. And it would be as fatuous to indict the courage of the many because we hold indisputable evidence of the cowardice of the few. Nevertheless, the facts of Wittenberg remain, an indelible stain upon the Herren Professoren, and Raemaekers, in this cartoon, indicates unerringly the cause which brought about so ignominious a retreat.
They had turned their faces from that ineffable Face which looks down in sorrow and pity upon the sufferings of Mankind.
However we may regard that Face, whether as a precious symbol of the Love which redeemed the world or as a Real and Divine Presence, this much is certain. What It stands for in the history of civilization cannot be ignored. It sustained the early martyrs and countless myriads since during bitter hours of suffering and torment; It has illumined all battlefields; It shines most steadfastly in storm and stress; It loses its incomparable splendor only in the sunshine of a too smug prosperity.