It is anticipating by a few months, but part of a speech the Emperor made in Potsdam at the confirmation of his two sons, August Wilhelm and Oscar—­two Hohenzollerns as yet not distinguished for anything in particular—­may be quoted in this connexion.  Naturally he began by comparing his sons’ spiritual situation with that of a soldier on the day he takes the oath of allegiance:  they were vorgemerkt, that is, predestined as “fighters for Christ.”  “What is demanded of you,” the imperial father went on, “is that you shall be personalities.  This is the point which, in my opinion, is the most important for the Christian in daily life.  For there can be no doubt that we can say of the person of the Lord, that He is the most ‘personal personality’ who has ever wandered among the sons of men....  You will read of many great men—­savants, statesmen, kings and princes, of poets also:  but nevertheless no word of man has ever been uttered worthy of comparison with the words of Christ; and I say this to you so that you may be in a position to bear it out when you are in the midst of life’s turmoil and hear people discussing religion, especially the personality of Christ.  No word of man has ever succeeded in making people of all races and all people enthusiastic for the same cause, namely, to imitate Him, even to sacrifice their lives for Him.  The wonder can only be explained by assuming that what He said were the words of the living God, which are the source of life, and continue to live thousands of years after the words of the wise have been forgotten.  That is my personal experience and it will be yours.

“The pivot and turning-point,” he continued,

“of our mortal life, especially of a life full of responsibility and labour—­that is clearer and clearer to me every year I live—­lies simply and solely in the attitude a man adopts towards his Lord and Saviour;”

and he concludes by exhorting his sons to disregard what people may say about the cult of Christ being irreconcilable with the tasks and responsibilities of “modern” life, but simply to do their best, whatever their occupation, to become a personality after Christ’s example.

This is a sound and just statement of Christian faith, and it is quoted here to justify the view that the Emperor’s soldiers and his Dreadnoughts, his mailed fist and shining armour, are built and put on in the spirit of precaution and defence.  The attitude, it cannot of course be denied, is based on the un-Christlike assumption that all men (and particularly all peoples and their governments and diplomatists) are liars; but in his favour it may be urged that for that saying the Emperor could cite Biblical authority.  And yet there is an inconsistency; for the saying is that of one of those same wise men whose words, the Emperor admits, are transitory and mortal.