His sacred dinner; ours did not count.
'I heard you say to Mr. Cyril Brown that the German nation at present is the greatest enemy to Christianity in the world.'
'No, no, Herr Pastor,' I interrupted; 'I said that the Emperor William is the worst enemy of Christianity in the world.'
'Ah, it is the same thing. You Americans call yourselves Christians,' he broke out, 'and yet your bombs from Bethlehem have shattered my son's leg and they killed thousands of our children. Your nation is Protestant. You ought to be with us against impious France and idolatrous Italy—I spit on Italy—the cocotte of the nations, the handmaid of the Papish prostitute of Rome! And yet you say that our most Christian nation is not Christian! How can you say it? We are not at war, yet you treat us as enemies!'
'We shall soon be at war. The Ambassador of the United States at Berlin is sending Americans out of that city. He feels, evidently, that, in spite of his influence with the Chancellor, you will begin your U-boat outrages, and then we must be at war! That is plain. But I think you have said enough. Herr Pastor, good-bye!'
'No, no,' he said. 'Answer me one question: why do you say that we Germans are un-Christian? Our Christianity is the most beautiful, the most learned, the most cultured!'
The young are relentless critics; I knew that my secretary was calling me names for 'picking up' this strange German clergyman in the street. Moreover, the secretary was beautifully attired; his morning coat was perfect; his tall hat tilted back at the right degree, and the triple white carnation in his buttonhole was a sight to see. (Dear chap! he is in the greasy automobile service in Flanders now!) And his cane! (If you walk out without a cane in polite Copenhagen, you are looked on as worse than nude.) Fancy! To be seen walking with a threadbare German pastor with a bulbous umbrella! He groaned; he knew that I would pause on the brink of an abyss for a little refreshing theological conversation!
'You cannot deny, Herr Pastor,' I said, 'that you people in Germany swear by Harnack, that Strauss's Life of Jesus is a book that you look on with great admiration, that much of the foolish "higher criticism" like the attacks on Saint Luke,[10] which Sir William Ramsay has so carefully refuted, and all the sneering at the fundamentals of Christianity have come from Germany, with the approval of the Emperor.'
'There are no English scientific theologians. I do not know your Ramsay. We are learned; we study; we see many of the Christian myths in an allegorical sense, but yet we adore the German God, who is with us, and we believe in Christ, though our learned ones may dissipate much that the populace hold. There must be a broad law for the Christian divine; a narrow one for the humble believer. We may not accept miracles, we of the learned, but we may not disturb the belief of the people in them. Culture must come from the top. The Catholics among us still accept the miracles, but they are most retrograde of the Germans. We are gaining upon them. It is the Zeitgeist; when we have conquered, with their help, we shall teach them the real lesson of Christianity! The German God will not brook idolatry. Our scientists disprove myths, but we work in the line of Luther still. He disproved myths!'
'I do not hold a brief for Martin Luther,' I said, 'but I think that he would have cursed any man who denied the divinity of Christ. You talk of a German God. He is not a Christian God, and I repeat to you what you heard me say to my friend in the restaurant.'