" HURRAH AND HALLELUJAH."

CAN history show anything comparable to the state of mind of the German nation at war ? For spiritual and mental arrogance, for egotism, for dire failure to see the point of view of others, we should think that there has never been anything like it. In the extraordinary collection of extracts from German poems, sermons, and religious writings to which Dr. Bang (Professor of Theology at Copenhagen) has given the borrowed title of Hurrah and Hallelujah (Hodder and Stoughton, 3s. 6d. net) we see a com- bined national and religions frenzy passing all bounds of sense and decency. If these things were not before us in black and white we could hardly credit them. But Dr. Bang is by no means a malicious collector ; when there is anything to be said in extenuation he says it ; and in general he is friendly towards the German people. In a word, he is an honest collator—an observer and a critic—and he sets forth the results of his research coolly enough. If he cannot disguise his amazement—well, who could ? CAN history show anything comparable to the state of mind of the German nation at war ? For spiritual and mental arrogance, for egotism, for dire failure to see the point of view of others, we should think that there has never been anything like it. In the extraordinary collection of extracts from German poems, sermons, and religious writings to which Dr. Bang (Professor of Theology at Copenhagen) has given the borrowed title of Hurrah and Hallelujah (Hodder and Stoughton, 3s. 6d. net) we see a com- bined national and religions frenzy passing all bounds of sense and decency. If these things were not before us in black and white we could hardly credit them. But Dr. Bang is by no means a malicious collector ; when there is anything to be said in extenuation he says it ; and in general he is friendly towards the German people. In a word, he is an honest collator—an observer and a critic—and he sets forth the results of his research coolly enough. If he cannot disguise his amazement—well, who could ?

All through the extracts we trace a morbid, and indeed inex- plicable, appropriation of God. God is a German God, and is frankly so called. The Germans are a kind of chosen people, and when they are dealing out " punishment " (what we should more

plainly call murder and every kind of savage crime) to their enemies

or those who stand in their way they are acting only as the agents of God. The similarity between this kind of thing and the Old Testament conception of God—though the comparison is unjust

to the Israelites—has often been noted. It is more remarkable than ever in Dr. Bang's documentation. Once make the astonishing assumption which is freely made by German ministers of religion and much else that is terrible and unnatural follows almost naturally.

A nation which says : " I am the Divine agent in the dispensation of the modern world," easily says in effect also : " If treaties stand in my way I must tear them up ; if neutrals impede me I must massacre and terrify them ; there must be no hindrances to my Divine mission. To admit hindrances would be impious. Pledgee hold good only so long as they help me. God obviously cannot

have meant that pledges should be the undoing of His chosen missioners whose holy task is to convey German civilization to a

blind world."

Pastor Emil Schultz, while asserting in his war poems that the Germans are God's people, disposes of the rest of the world as Rotten (gangs). Dr. Bang is not revealing these methods of thought to the Rotten part of the world for the first time. Fifteen years ago he called attention in his book, Christianity and Nationality, to a German commentary on the Ser-

mon on the Mount in which Jesus, St. Paul, Luther, and William L were described as " true world-conquerers." Young Germans were taught to look upon William I. as the latest link in a chain which began with Jesus. Bismarck was also spoken of in the same breath with St. Paul and other writers in the New Testament.

Of all the present pastor-poets of Germany, the most remarkable, judged by the tests we have indicated above, is Konsistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, the author of Hurrah and Hallelujah, whose

title Dr. Bang has borrowed. Vorwerk is the author of a para- phrase of the Lord's Prayer :—

" Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death and tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful long-suffering each bullet and each blow which misses its mark I Leal us not into the temptation of letting our wrath be too tame in carrying out Thy divine judgment I Deliver us and our Ally from the infernal Enemy and Ills servants on earth. Thine is the kingdom, the Germans ; and may we, by aid of Thy steel-clad hand, achieve the power and the glory."

It is only just to say that as a result of some protests this blasphemous effort was removed from later editions of the book. Another poem by this pastor opens with a curse on those who are not zealous in executing God's judgments on the enemies of Germany. It is clearly right to punish the British because they are guilty of greed, envy, and hypocrisy. " We spit at them, we hate them, just because they are British, allied to British falsehood and craft.

We also had our share in these things, but now we have thrust them all from us, now we walk in gentle innocence." In another poem Vorwerk, in the most masterly of all phrases in this style, invokes God in these words : " Thou who dwellest high above Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins " 1 The poem ends thus : " Help us to judge with Thy holy hatred all who insolently try to seize Thy crown, so that we may not cease to destroy, until death has fully ripened the fruit ! "

A large proportion of the pastors' poems have an iron cross imprinted as a symbol on the covers. A poem about Kiao-chau, published in November, 1914, reproduces the spirit in which the Emperor enjoined the Germans who took part in the first expedition to China to behave ruthlessly like Huns and give no quarter to their enemies :-

" 0 God, do Thou accept us as strong and worthy to wield Thy fell sword of vengeance ; as Thy faithful servants will we bleed and conquer for the right, and we will avenge the blood of our brethren with truly godlike courage. Oh, help us, Father, at the right time, Thou the Father of all justice."

A pastor-poet named T. Suze writes : " The Germans are the first before the throne of God. . . . Thou couldst not place the golden crown of victory in purer hands." One F. Philippi writes :- " We have become a nation of wrath ; we think only of the war. — We execute God's Almighty will, and the edicts of His justice we will fulfil, imbued with holy rage, in vengeance upon the ungodly. God calls us to murderous battles, even if worlds should thereby fall to ruins. — — We are woven together like the chastening lash of war : we flame aloft like the lightning ; like gardens of roses our wounds blossom at the gate of Heaven. We thank Theo, Lord God I Thy wrathful call obliterate. our sinful nature ; with Thine iron rod we smite all our enemies in the face."

Imagine German soldiers, drunk with the wine of this heady raving, turned loose in Louvain, Dinant, Termonde, and elsewhere to inflict the judgments of God ! It is appalling to think of ; and when one sets this stuff beside the phrases of gentleness and humanity which it suits the Emperor to affect at the momont one is quite sickened by the thought that savagery and sentimentalism flow so easily

from a common fount,

Sometimes, the images of vengeance and punishment aro exchanged for that of healing. The idea of " the healing of the sick world by Germanism " recurs frequently. This does not strike the pastors as grotesque, any more than it seems to the pastor, H. Franke, ill-judged to remark of the typical Russian that " agreements and Constitutions, solemnly sworn to, have no significance for him." II. Franke is also the author of the following assertion in one of his sermons :- " Here we come upon the old intimate kinship between the essence of Christianity and of Gernu2nism. Because of their close spiritual relation- ship, therefore, Christianity must find its fairest flower in the German mind. Therefore we have a right to say : ' Our German Christianity— the most perfect, the most pure.' The joy of seeking the truth and of being free has always been the highest joy to Germans."

Pastor W. Lehmann is even bolder. In insisting that God is on the side of Germany, he says: "If God is with us who can be against us ? It is enough for us to be part of God." And again ; " Yes, but so it is, my friends : that glorious feat-of-arms forty-four years ago gives us courage to believe that the German soul is the world's soul, that God and Germany belong to one another." W. Lehmann is perhaps the boldest of them all in other respects

also :=

" Friends ! is it not true ? Germany has never made war from unclean, immoral motives ! I look upon it as absolutely the deepest feature of the German character, this passionate love of right, of justice. of morality. This is something which the other nations have not. Germany may be vanquished, it may be crushed to earth, but it can never side with wrong and infamy."

Some of the pastors—all of them perhaps—are not wanting in the practice of flattery. Here is a eulogy of the Emperor by Pastor Rump: " As a true Israelite without guile, in the midst of an untrustworthy generation, he confronted the respectful gaze of his people and of the world. We have but partly known him. This inner greatness, this sun- clear nobility of soul, this German straightforwardness which holds out to the last moment, which does not suspect a false friend of lying or fraud until he unmasks himself—all this has simply vanquished us. To such grandeur has William the Second grown before our wondering eyes, that we felt the greatest of the Hohenzollern to have risen again in him. In one point, my brethren, he exceeds them all—in the sense of his responsibility to the living God."

Among the efforts of the theological Professors we must give the first prize to the explanation by W. Herrmann of why Germany was perfectly justified from a religious point of view in allying herself with the Turks. The Professor had an awkward corner to turn, as it had been a habit in Germany to denounce the Allies for bringing heathens into the field :—

" It is true that the Mohammedans do not know the Old or the New Testament, and Mohammed did not understand Jesus. Yet they are in some respect superior to us. It is a stupendous feat that this religion should in so short a time have spread from India to Granada. [We can easily understand (interjects Dr. Barg) that the colossal nature of this feat should appeal to the German mind.] Another point is that the Turks have been unified by their religion, the Germans have not. The main thing, however, is this, that the faith of the Turks assures them that God ordains everything, and is the reality in everything. The word Islam means exactly the same as the Biblical word faith that is, complete self-surrender. As Goethe said, when this became clear to him : ' Then we are all of us, in reality, believers in Islam ! ' But Mohammed also maintains, that we are free and responsible for what we do, wherefore God will judge us all ; and in this, too, we agree with him. On no account must one suppose that the Mohammedan belief in God is only a belief in an inflexible fate. No, it is also a belief in God's wisdom and goodness. There is certainly this difference, that only by looking to Jesus can we Christians find courage to hold such a faith. Nevertheless we must maintain that we stand near to the Turks in our faith—only they have not recognized the right foundation of the faith they hold. But wo Germans can help them to that."

We have given only a few samples of the militaristic ferment in theological heads. There are hundreds in the book, and they make a compound which for grandiosity, absurdity, and painfulness combined it would be hard, and perhaps impossible, to find a

match.