New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 24

From this point of view, the definition of religion given in the Old Testament should be revised, "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy G.o.d." In doing justice we must first be just to self; in loving mercy it must not be at the expense of our own interests and advantage, and we must not walk so humbly before our G.o.d as to give to the world the appearance of weakness or lack of independence. As Nietzsche insists, "The man who loves his neighbor as himself must have an exceedingly poor opinion of himself." If the race is to be perfected, everything and every person must be sacrificed in order to produce and preserve the strong man at all hazards. There is a kind of "moralic acid," as Nietzsche styles it, which is corroding the strength of humanity in our modern day. We have discoursed too much of character, too little of power; too much of self-sacrifice and too little of self-a.s.sertion; too much of right, too little of might. Conscience not only interferes with success, but also prevents the evolution of a superior type of man, that superman who is not constrained by duty nor limited by law, living his life "beyond good and evil."

The serious question which presents itself to our minds at this time is whether our modern world has not been unconsciously incorporating these ideas into its living beliefs--that is, those beliefs which reveal themselves in actual living and doing, in daily purpose, in the adaptation of means to ends, in the deeds which the world honors, and in the achievements which it crowns with glory. There are many persons who would not have the frankness of Nietzsche to say that might makes right, and that a moral sense is the great obstacle to progress, and that in "vigorous eras n.o.ble civilizations see something contemptible in sympathy, in brotherly love, in the lack of self-a.s.sertion and self-reliance." Our modern world may not explicitly subscribe to such doctrines in their extreme and exaggerated expression, but nevertheless may be unconsciously influenced by them. Our real opinions, however, are to be tested by our sense of values as revealed by the things which we crave, which we set our hearts upon, which we strive early and late to gain, and sacrifice all else in order to secure. Have we not offered our prayers to the G.o.d of might rather than the G.o.d of righteousness, to the G.o.d of power rather than the G.o.d of justice, the G.o.d of mercy and of love?

The time has come, in my opinion, for us to take account of the things which we really believe, and of the G.o.d Whom we really worship. If we have been following false G.o.ds, let us honestly endeavor to re-establish fundamental and essential values, to discover anew what is of supreme worth and set our faces resolutely toward its realization. The need of our modern world today is the same as that of the ancient world at the time of the coming of Christ. His message to the world as indicated by His teaching, and His life was an arraignment of the ancient regime as regards three crucial points.

The Brotherhood of Man.

First, the religious and moral beliefs of that age had become purely formal. There was the letter of conviction, but not the spirit of it.

The creed, the ritual, the ceremony were there, but the life had departed. And so today our beliefs have lost vitality to a large extent because we have been content to indulge in formulas oft repeated, which have ceased to have significance for our thoughts or for our feelings.

We have allowed ourselves to be betrayed by words which are mere sounds without substance. We have verbalized our beliefs, and have depotentialed them of vital significance. Take, for instance, the phrases, "The fatherhood of G.o.d" and "The brotherhood of man." They have been so often upon our lips as to become trite; their real meaning has disappeared. It is easy to repeat the words, and to be satisfied with the repet.i.tion, and nevertheless remain wholly insensible to their profound import, and under no compulsion whatsoever to obey their sublime command. We a.s.sent to the formula: but it does not become a determining factor in our purposes and plans. There is perhaps no age in the history of the world which has so emphasized the idea of the brotherhood of man as our own, and never in all history has there been such a denial of this idea as by the present European war. If the brotherhood of man had been the living, dominant idea of our civilization, could this present tragedy of the nations have occurred?

If the world had believed profoundly in the idea of G.o.d, would we now be daily reading of the ghastly scenes where human life is no longer sacred, where love gives place to hate, where the constructive forces of the world are superseded by the destructive, and all the pa.s.sions of man's brute inheritance are given full play and scope?

Second--In the teachings of Christ there was a remarkable expansion of the idea of G.o.d. Instead of the tribal G.o.d worshipped as the G.o.d of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, He subst.i.tuted the idea of G.o.d, as the G.o.d of all peoples and all races, the G.o.d of the Jew and Gentile, of the Greek and barbarian, of the bond and the free. It was the great apostle of the Gentiles who at the centre of Greek civilization announced this fundamental conception of Christianity to the old world:

G.o.d hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.

This was the sublime idea of the G.o.d of a united humanity. The G.o.d of the tribe had given place to the G.o.d of the whole world. That conception was very foreign to the popular religious notions current at the time of Christ, and it seems still further away from our ideas of the present day. It is a very narrow and circ.u.mscribed view of G.o.d to regard Him as concerned merely for our little insular affairs, to regard Him simply as a G.o.d of the individual or of the home, or even one's nation. He transcends all these limitations of particular interests and particular needs. He is not merely our G.o.d but the G.o.d of all mankind. The children of Israel called Him the G.o.d of battle, the G.o.d of hosts, that is, the one who would give victory to them in their battles, and who would prove the leader of their hosts. But Christ came to the world in G.o.d's name to universalize this narrow tribal idea of G.o.d, proclaiming peace on earth and good will to men. It was the dawn of a new era, the Christian era.

That light which shone upon the old world is darkened by the cloud hanging low over Europe at the present time. We cannot think, however, that it is permanently extinguished. To that light the nations of the earth must again return.

The Area of Moral Obligation.

Third--Christ gave to the world of His day an enlarged idea of the area of moral obligation. He insisted most stoutly upon the expansion of the scope of individual responsibility. This freeing of the idea of duty from the limitations of race prejudice is a natural corollary to the idea of the universality of G.o.d's relation to the world. Corresponding to the tribal view of G.o.d there is always an accompanying idea of the restricted obligation of the individual. To care for one's own family or one's own clan or tribe and present a hostile front to the rest of mankind has always been the characteristic feature of primitive morality. It was peculiarly the teaching of Christ which brought to the world the idea that the area of moral obligation is co-extensive with the world itself. There are no racial or national lines which can limit the extent of our responsibility. The world today needs to learn this lesson anew, and it is evident that it must acquire this knowledge through bitter and desperate experiences. We must interpret in this large sense the great moral dictum of the German philosopher, Kant, that every one in a particular circ.u.mstance should act as he would wish all men to act if similarly circ.u.mstanced and conditioned. This is the complete universalizing of our moral obligations--stripping our sense of duty of everything that is particular and local and isolated. The natural tendency of human nature is to particularize our relations to G.o.d and bound our relations to our fellow-men; to narrow our relations to G.o.d so as to embrace only our direst needs, and to circ.u.mscribe our relations to man so as to include in the field of responsibility only those who are our kin or our own kind. The time has certainly come for us to take larger views of the world, of man, and of G.o.d.

After the great calamity of this present war is pa.s.sed there must necessarily follow a period of reconstruction. It will not be merely the reconstruction of national resources and international relations, but it must be also a reconstruction of our fundamental conceptions of man and of the relation of man to man the world over, and of the relation also of man to G.o.d. We must ask anew the question, Who is our neighbor?

In this great moral enterprise you will naturally play a large and significant part, for you belong to the cla.s.s of men who are expected to have strong and decided opinions in the face of a great world crisis, and are capable of leading others toward the goal of a regenerated humanity. To know the right and to maintain it, to fight against the wrong, to impart courage to the timid, strength to the weak, and hope to the faint-hearted; to forget self in the service of others and extend a human sympathy to the ends of the earth, this is your vocation. It is the call of the world, it is the voice of one calling to you out of a distant past across the nineteen Christian centuries; it is the "spirit of the years to come," summoning you to establish the Kingdom of G.o.d upon earth.

JEANNE D'ARC--1914.

By ALMA DURANT NICOLSON.

Rise from the buried ages, O thou Maid, Rise from thy glorious ashes, unafraid, And wheresoe'er thy Brothers need thee most, Arise again, to lead thy tireless host.

France calls thee as she called in days gone by!

She calls thy spirit where her soldiers die; She knows thy courage and thy sacrifice, And wills today to pay the selfsame price, All-confident that when the work is done, She shall behold her Honor saved and Victory won.

G.o.d calls thee, Maid, from out the Past-- The Past of France where thy strange lot was cast-- And bid'st thee fling about this fearful hour Thy dauntless Faith, that was thy magic Power.

And Freedom calls, with all-impelling voice, She calls the Sons of France, and leaves no choice, No waver and no alternating will; Where Freedom calls, all other calls are still, All-confident that when her work is done Ye shall behold your Country saved and Victory won.

The Kaiser and Belgium

By John W. Burgess.

Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, Pure Science, and the fine Arts at Columbia University; Roosevelt Professor of American History and Inst.i.tutions at Friedrich Wilhelms University, Berlin, 1906-7; Visiting American Professor to Austrian Universities, 1914-15; Decorated, Order of Prussian Crown by the German Emperor and Order of the Albrechts by the King of Saxony.

FIRST ARTICLE.

It is often said by historians that no truly great man is every really understood by the generation, and in the age, for which he labors. Many instances of the truth of this statement can be easily cited. Two of the most flagrant have come within the range of my own personal experience.

The first was the character of Abraham Lincoln as depicted by the British press of 1860-64 and as conceived by the British public opinion of that era. Mr. Henry Adams, son and private secretary of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, our Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain during that critical era in our history, writes, in that fascinating book of his ent.i.tled "The Education of Henry Adams,"

that "London was altogether beside itself on one point, in especial; it created a nightmare of its own, and gave it the shape of Abraham Lincoln. Behind this it placed another demon, if possible more devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard to these two men English society seemed demented. Defense was useless: explanation was vain. One could only let the pa.s.sion exhaust itself. One's best friends were as unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality and Seward's ferocity became a dogma of popular faith."

Adams relates further that the last time he saw Thackeray at Christmas of 1863 they spoke of their mutual friend Mrs. Frank Hampton of South Carolina, whom Thackeray had portrayed as Ethel Newcome, and who had recently pa.s.sed away from life. Thackeray had read in the British papers that her parents had been prevented by the Federal soldiers from pa.s.sing through the lines to see her on her deathbed. Adams writes that

in speaking of it Thackeray's voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears. The coa.r.s.e cruelty of Lincoln and his hirelings was notorious. He never doubted that the Federals made a business of harrowing the tenderest feelings of women--particularly of women--in order to punish their opponents. On quite insufficient evidence he burst into reproach. Had he (Adams) carried in his pocket the proofs that the reproach was unjust he would have gained nothing by showing them. At that moment Thackeray, and all London society with him, needed the nervous relief of expressing emotions; for if Mr. Lincoln was not what they said he was, what were they?

Mr. Lincoln sent over our most skillful politician, Thurlow Weed, and our most able const.i.tutional lawyer, William M. Evarts, and later our most brilliant orator, Henry Ward Beecher, followed, for the purpose of bringing the British people to their senses and correcting British opinion, but all to little purpose. Gettysburg and Vicksburg did far more toward modifying that opinion than the persuasiveness of Weed, the logic of Evarts, or the eloquence of Beecher, and it took Chattanooga, the March to the Sea, and Appomattox to dispel the illusion entirely.

Today we are laboring under a no less singular illusion than were the English in 1862. The conception prevailing in England and in this country concerning the physical, mental, and moral make-up of the German Emperor is the monumental caricature of biographical literature. I have had the privilege of his personal acquaintance now for nearly ten years.

I have been brought into contact with him in many different ways and under many varying conditions, at Court and State functions, at university ceremonies and celebrations, at his table, and by his fireside surrounded by his family, when in the midst of his officials, his men of science, and his personal friends, and, more instructive than all, alone in the imperial home in Berlin and at Potsdam and in the castle and forest at Wilhelmshohe. With all this experience, with all this opportunity for observation at close range, I am hardly able to recognize a single characteristic usually attributed to him by the British and American press of today.

In the first place, the Emperor is an impressive man physically. He is not a giant in stature, but a man of medium size, great strength and endurance, and of agile and graceful movement. He looks every inch a leader of men. His fine gray-blue eyes are peculiarly fascinating. I saw him once seated beside his uncle, King Edward VII., and the contrast was very striking, and greatly in his favor.

In the second place, the Emperor is an exceedingly intelligent and highly cultivated man. His mental processes are swift, but they go also very deep. He is a searching inquirer, and questions and listens more than he talks. His fund of knowledge is immense and sometimes astonishing. He manifests interest in everything, even to the smallest detail, which can have any bearing upon human improvement. I remember a half hour's conversation with him once over a cupping gla.s.s, which he had gotten from an excavation in the Roman ruin called the Saalburg, near Homburg. He always appeared to me most deeply concerned with the arts of peace. I have never heard him speak much of war, and then always with abhorrence, nor much of military matters, but improved agriculture, invention, and manufacture, and especially commerce and education in all their ramifications, were the chief subjects of his thought and conversation. I have had the privilege of a.s.sociation with many highly intelligent and profoundly learned men, but I have never acquired as much knowledge, in the same time, from any man whom I have ever met, as from the German Emperor. And yet, with all this real superiority of mind and education, his deference to the opinions of others is remarkable.

Arrogance is one of the qualities most often attributed to him, but he is the only ruler I ever saw in whom there appeared to be absolutely no arrogance. He meets you as man meets man and makes you feel that you are required to yield to nothing but the better reason.

A Man of Warm Affections.

In the third place, the Emperor impressed me as a man of heart, of warm affections, and of great consideration for the feelings and well-being of others. He can not, at least does not, conceal his reverence for, and devotion to, the Empress, or his love for his children, or his attachment to his friends. He always speaks of Queen Victoria and of the Empress Friedrich with the greatest veneration, and once when speaking to me of an old American friend who had turned upon him he said that it was difficult for him to give up an old friend, right or wrong, and impossible when he believed him to be in the right. His manifest respect and affection for his old and tried officials, such as Luca.n.u.s and zu Eulenburg and von Studt and Beseler and Althoff, give strong evidence of the warmth and depth of his nature. His consideration for Americans, especially, has always been remarkable. It was at his suggestion that the exchange of educators between the universities of Germany and of the United States was established, and it has been his custom to be present at the opening lecture of each new inc.u.mbent of these positions at the University of Berlin, and to greet him and welcome him to his work.

He is also the first to extend to these foreign educators hospitality and social attention. To any one who has experienced his hearty welcome to his land and his home the a.s.sertion that he is arrogant and autocratic is so far away from truth as to be ludicrous. Again I must say that I have never met a ruler, in monarchy or republic, in whom genuine democratic geniality was a so predominant characteristic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS

_(Photo by the Misses Selby.)_

_See Page 526_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUDOLF EUCKEN

_See Page 534_]

But the characteristic of the Emperor which struck me most forcibly is his profound sense of duty and his readiness for self-sacrifice for the welfare of his country. This is a general German trait. It is the most admirable side of German nature. And the Emperor is, in this respect especially, their Princeps. I remember sitting beside him one day, when one of the ladies of his household asked me if I were acquainted with a certain wealthy ultra-fashionable New York social leader. I replied, by name only. She pressed me to know why not more nearly, why not personally. And to this, I replied that I was not of her cla.s.s; that I could not amuse her, and that I did not approve of the frivolous and demoralizing example and influence of one so favorably circ.u.mstanced for doing good. The Emperor had heard the conversation, and he promptly said: "You know in Germany we do not rate and cla.s.sify people by their material possessions, but by the importance of the service they render to country, culture, and civilization." One of his sons once told me that from his earliest childhood his father had instilled into his mind the lesson that devotion to duty and readiness for sacrifice were the cardinal virtues of a German, especially of a Hohenzollern. His days are periods of constant labor and severe discipline. He rises early, lives abstemiously and works until far into the night. There is no day laborer in his entire empire who gives so many hours per diem to his work. His nature is manifestly deeply religious and, in every sentence he speaks, evidence of his consciousness that the policeman's club cannot take the place of religious and moral principle is revealed. His frequent appeal for Divine aid in the discharge of his duties is prompted by the conviction that the heavier the duty the more need there is of that aid.

His Pa.s.sion for German Greatness.

He undoubtedly has an intense desire, almost a pa.s.sion, for the prosperity and greatness of his country, but his conception of that prosperity and greatness is more spiritual and cultural than material and commercial. More than once have I heard him say that he desired to see Germany a wealthy country, but only as the result of honest and properly requited toil, and that wealth acquired by force or fraud was more a curse than a blessing, and was destined to go as it had come. His conception of the greatness of Germany is as a great intellectual and moral power rather than anything else. Its physical power he values chiefly as the creator and maintainer of the conditions necessary to the production and influence of this higher power. I have often heard him express this thought.

And in spite of this terrible war, the responsibility for which is by so many erroneously laid at his door, I firmly believe him to be a man of peace. I am absolutely sure that he has entered upon this war only under the firm conviction that Great Britain, France, and Russia have conspired to destroy Germany as a world power, and that he is simply defending, as he said in his memorable speech to the Reichstag, the place which G.o.d had given the Germans to dwell on. For seven years I myself have witnessed the growth of this conviction in his mind and that of the whole German Nation as the evidences of it have multiplied from year to year until at last the fatal hour at Serajevo struck. I firmly believe that there is no soul in this wide world upon whom the burden and grief of this great catastrophe so heavily rest as upon the German Emperor. I have heard him declare with the greatest earnestness and solemnity that he considered war a dire calamity; that Germany would never during his reign wage an offensive war, and that he hoped G.o.d would spare him from the necessity of ever having to conduct a defensive war. For years he has been conscious that British diplomacy was seeking to isolate and crush Germany by an alliance of Latin, Slav, and Mongol under British direction, and he sought in every way to avert it. He visited England himself frequently. He sent his Ministers of State over to cultivate the acquaintance and friendship of the British Ministers, but rarely would the British King go himself to Germany or send his Ministers to return these visits. More than once have I heard him say that he was most earnestly desirous of close friendship between Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, and had done, was doing, and would continue to do, all in his power to promote it; but that while the Americans were cordially meeting Germany half way, the British were cold, suspicious, and repellent.