THE KAISER'S PRAYER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 112, 5 October 1914, Page 7

THE KAISER'S PRAYER.

_ -»»- AMERICAN CaVL.YU"' .T9. ASK NG COD TO BLESS MA- ...UTLK. '•TIIL TWILIGHT OF 1!: I a! N ! W.' What has God to do v,,i > all tl.. horror that seems opting upon the eyes of an astonished woi'm. '■ i!i pointed otu in our paper*. ; i .••: , -d ) i:ji't ihreo '•pietislic Emperors' expect U'will work for them, and I'-..;. h:ive exhorted their subjects to ca" u.ion huu for aid. "Before .•stabht.liai.' hell on earth the pietistic Kings, commend their subjH-t God." observes the Chicago i'n '.n:ne. What they really do i« to ''scck the Lord's sanction for the dcvii's v.ork.-' inevitable facts that they imply are here vividly imagined:— '"And now 1 commend you to God," said the Kaiser from his balcony to thy people m the street. 'Go to church and kneel before God and pray fo:- His help for our gallant army. | '•'l'rav that a farmer dragged from a -Saxon field shall be speedier with a rifle than a -Moscow merchant; that a| machine gun maimed by Heidelberg student* shall not jam and that one worked by Paris carpenters shall. - Tray lli.it a Bavarian hop-grower armed in a quarrel in which he lias no leart, shall outmarch a wlieat-grower. iiom Poltava; that Cossacks tiom the Uuu shall be lured into barbed-wire entangliuiciiW and caught by masked gi.iio, lb i.l an innkeeper ol SaLli 'g viiall Mow Ihe head of a baker from the Loire. ,

' \io to church and pray for help that the hell sha.U be hotter in miiocuit Ardennes than it is in equally innocent Lessen.; that it shall be aotter m innocent Kovuo than iu equally iuuoci.ni l'ttfen.

"And the pietistic Czar commends his uibjceis to God that they may have strength o! arm in a quarrel uioj iiu not understand; tuat tuey may inllict more sunuings than tlicy are required to euoure and the name ol iloiiiunoli be greater than the name ot iiolieuzoilcrn, Uiat it may be greater ihan tin: name of llapsburg, that its territories shall be wider and the teiiitoriej oi Lolienzollern and the ten Hones oi llapsburg less. 'J'hi- pieiistie Kinpcror of Austria commend,} his subjects to God, to seek ihvine assistance to crush the peasants o! fccrvia,'dragged from the wlieatliel.l when it. was ready for the serine and given to the scythe themselves." The despair of an indignant and lielpicttj world is found expressed in lines by Clinton Scollard that the New York bun us.ed at the head of ils editorial page on Sunday, August 2: —

THE RECKONING . What do they reck who sit aloof on thrones, Or in Uc> chambered chancelleries apart. Plavung tlie game of State with subtle "art, 11 eo be they may win, what wretched groans Rise from red fields, what unrecorded bones ]Sle:icli within shallow graves, what bitter Hinait Pierces tSie widowed or the orphaned heart— The unkooded horror for which naught atones. A word, a. pen-stroke, and this might not be! But vengeance, power-lust, festering jealousy Triumph, and grim carnage stalks abroad. Hark: Hear that ominous liugle on the wind! And they who might Jiave stayed it, shall they find No reckoning within tho courts of! God?

If Divinity enters here, thinks' the writer in the Chicago paper, "it comes with a sword to deliver -the people from the sword." "it is the twilight of the kings,' continues the writer. "The reI public marches cast in Europe-" "This is, wo think, the last call of monarchy upon Divini%: when Aeniudeus walks dn armour. The kings worship Baal and call it God, hut out of the sacrifice will come, we think, a resolution firmly taken to iliave no more wheat-growers and growers of corn, makers of wine, minors, ami fishers, artisans and traders, sailors and storekeepers offered up with prayer to the Almighty in a feudal slaughter, armed against one another without hate and without cause they know, or, if they knew, would give a penny which way it was determined.

"This is the twilight of the kings. Western Europe of the kings will be remade and the name of God shall not give graco to a hundred s*mare miles of brokem bodies."

With a more vehement judgment on those who are responsible for the decision of war, the New York Evening Post thus treats the case of the "three 'Kings - ':— "The human mind cannot yet begin to grasp the consequences. One of them, however, seems plainly written in, the book of the future. It is that, after this most awful and most wicked of wars is over, the power of life and death over millions of men, the Tight to decree the ruin of industry and. commerce and finance, with untold human misory stalking through the land like a plague, will he taken away from three men. Ko safe prediction of actual results of battle can l>e iru'.de. Dynasties may crumble heforo all ie done; empires change their form of government. .But whatever happens, Europe—'humanity—will not set lie back again into a position enabling three Emperors—one of thum senile, another subject to ?nylancholti, and the third often showir.,'.; signs of disturbed mental 'balance —to givs, in their indivi'tial choice or whim, the signal lor destruction and massacre."

Tin* Now York Tribune prwicheg a lay senium on the, subject of Christianity and war. pointing out that a Christianity which would restrain men from engaging in mutual efforts for slaughter lias never hid a real chance:—

"Trie sudden flaming forth of the -war madness in Europe will again raise, the question, oftmi discussed before, why it is that great nations which acknowledge their allegiance to the Christian religion appear to lie absolutely uninfluenced by its teachings. War is contrary to the fundamental ideals of Christianity, which was first proclaimed as a religion of pexce ami goodwill among men, and whoec teachings look to the ultimate gathering together of all mankind in one great huic.ni brotherhood ruled be love. Yet tin- leading Christian nations of the vvurM are preparing to fly at each other's '.hroats just as Hit it remote ancestors, the cave men, might have done. Is not this fact, it may be asked, a serious indictment of Christianity?

"The answer is that the indictment lies not so much against Christianity as ngainst those who profess to accept its teachings and don't even pretend to live 1 iii) to tho,?e teachings in their daily lives. Not only in the matter of war, but in hundreds of other matters* people are every day doing thinps forbidden hv the religious creed they profess; and

I this fact ptoves not that their creed is bud or futile, but that average humanity has not yet reached the point where it can obey Christian teachings. An a 'natter of fact, Christianity has never yet had a fair trial in the world. Its noblest idealisms have always had to be more or •ss tliiul .. ;, orii.-r to niiike, thorn acceptable to humanity in tin; rough.

"Nevertheless, it -would imply a very shallow judgment to assert that fhrimtianity has hud no influence, even in I'llie case of war. Who shall say that a majority of (liviliscd men and women in (he world to-day are not opposed to v,ar? They have no way of expressing ilHinsolves: thev do not sit in the seats 'of the mightv. But they are quietly registering their judgment against war as a crime against humanity. And some day, when there shall be ushered in lhf era of 'sweeter manners, punier laws,' foretold by the poet, the verdict of these.flain people will be respected and obeyed by those who will then rule. lh« (U'stiiiieea of the world."