This new philosophy of militarism teaches that crimes become virtues if they promote the interests of the Fatherland. To accept the hospitality, to plot arson, bombing and sedition; to play false to all the higher considerations of honour, through the treachery of Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, is beautiful and glorious for a German. The blackest deeds become sacred because they promote German interests. So thoroughly has this philosophy of loyalty to the Fatherland permeated the German soul in every part of the world, that—despite multitudes of large-hearted, open-minded American citizens who came hither from German homes to better their political and industrial conditions, and who, Germans as they are, gratefully appreciate and are loyal to the America that has welcomed them—there are also thousands of German-Americans about us from whose lips you cannot obtain one word of criticism of the blackest deeds of murder and arson and treachery by Germany's agents in this country, or of Germany abroad. Whatever is done for the Fatherland is right, no matter what crime is involved.
It is precisely to this type that Jesus addressed His words about the light in men that had become darkness, and therefore "how great is that darkness." By this route Germans have gone downward towards spiritual apostasy.
Germany's Wolfish Spirit
Germany's inspiration seems to be that of the treacherous wolf. Intellectually we cannot understand how a shepherd can watch wolves tearing the throat of the lamb in the Belgian sheepfold and the French sheepfold, while he stands by and waits until the wolf tears some lambs and sheep in the American sheepfold. When a brave man has seen a wolf tear the throat of one lamb he ought to leap from his place of safety and take his place beside the lamb. Of course, the wolf has many explanations to offer, but the explanations of the wolf do not interest some men. There are some foul diseases, like slavery, that have to be cut out by the surgery of war. Militarism and autocracy are cancers, and God has anointed the surgeon with ointment, black and sulphurous. But the surgeon's knife has to be heated red hot, that it may cauterize the wounds, lest the patient bleed and die.
"We must choose," said Bernhardi, "between Napoleon and Jesus."
The people of the United States have chosen between Militarism and Jesus. Our fathers chose eighteen centuries ago. They left the law of the pack behind. They chose to become the sons of God, and lose their lives that Christ's little ones might survive. Hospitals, reforms, schoolhouses for children, reform acts, emancipation proclamations, the Declaration of Independence, justice, and man's redemption are the results. German militarism is the apotheosis of the law of the wolf-pack, return to the club and the caveman. If she succeeds in a return to brute force, her victory will be the most terrible calamity that overwhelmed the earth since that event that Milton describes in his story of the rebellion in heaven. Every editor and school-teacher, every priest and minister, every patriot and parent, should drill into the minds of children and youth the Kaiser's original charge and the meaning thereof: "No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Make yourselves more frightful than the Huns under Attila." Strange, therefore, the Germans feel so terribly because men call them Huns! Who understood their real nature? The Kaiser. Who branded them on the forehead with a red-hot iron, "Huns"? Their Kaiser. Whose bloody fingers were lifted upon their heads when his mildewed lips christened them "Hun"? Their Kaiser. Who likened the German soldiers to bloodhounds held upon the leash as they strained forward to tear women and children in Belgium and France? Their Kaiser. But Jesus said, Woe unto him that offends against one of My little ones! And out of the whirlwind comes the voice of an outraged God, saying to the invaders, "Here stay thy bloody waves! Thus far, and no farther!"
FOOTNOTES:
[3] "On Thursday afternoon in connection with the sentence pronounced upon von Bopp and the German vice consul and the German attorney for complicity in the plot to blow up factories the dispatches said much about 'the man higher up.' One of the references plainly referred to Münsterberg. On Saturday morning Münsterberg fell dead of apoplexy. Many Secret Service men associate the two events."—Extract from address by Lawrence Chamberlain.