The Germans are evidently watching their Emperor with -close attention,
and with a certain readiness to believe that he does extraordinary things. The statement that he has published sermons preached by himself on board the Imperial yacht is now denied, and it is affirmed that the sermons were written by the chaplain, and only read by his Majesty in the chaplain's absence. They were then published with an advertisement which led to the illusion. There must be some similar explanation of the speech which the Nesser Zeitung asserts that the Emperor delivered to the recruits of the 1st Foot Guards at Potsdam, and which is half-admitted by the official Post to be accurate :—" Recruits, you have, in the pre- sence of the consecrated servants of God and before the altar, sworn fealty to me. You have, my children, sworn fealty to me, which means that you have given yourselves to me, body and soul. There exists for you only one enemy, and that is my enemy. With the present Socialist agitation it may pos- sibly happen that I may have to order you, which God forbid, to shoot down your own relatives, your brothers, and even your parents, but if I do so you must obey without a murmur." It is conceivable that a modern Emperor may have thought such sentences, but inconceivable that he should have pro- nounced them. They accentuate too deeply the conflict between discipline and the moral law.
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