NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE King of Prussia was on Wednesday proclaimed Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles,—perhaps the most dramatic event of this century. He is now styled in all Berlin telegrams the Emperor-King, but in a proclamation to the German people, read on Thursday to the Prussian Parliament, he is called Emperor only. In this proclamation the new Kaiser declares that he accepts the Imperial Crown as a duty to the whole Fatherland, "conscious of the duty to protect with German loyalty the rights of the Empire and its members, to preserve peace, to maintain the independence of Germany, and to strengthen the power of the people." He accepts it in the " hope that it will be granted to the German people to enjoy in lasting peace the reward of its arduous and heroic struggles, within boundaries which will give to the Fatherland that security against French attacks which it has lacked for centuries." " May God grant that we may be the defenders of the German Empire at all times, not in martial conquests, but in works of peace, in the sphere of national prosperity, freedom, and civilization !" Good words,—scarcely audible amid the roar of the guns which are destroying "prosperity, freedom, and civilization" in an empire equally important to mankind.
