The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1916. A NATION GROWN INSANE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1916. A NATION GROWN INSANE.

, Under the suggestive title "Hurrah and i. Hallelujah" there has recently appeared in Germany a collection of "characteristic passages from German poems, speeches and sermons" expressing the German people's conception of their own ,; position in the world, their duty and - their destiny; ami familiar as most peoi pie by this time must be with the col- '' ossal arrogance and self-sufficiency which ' are now the dominant features of the . German national '"'"''u-tor, this compila-' - tion will come a> a shock. For it reh veals more clearly '' •' any testimony s hitherto supplier ""'"ful fact that j! the insanity froir. "amany is suf--7 fering ha* ■■■ .-.uliarly acute j

stage in which the madman conceives himself as the instrument of Divine vengeance, or even identities himself with God, and thus justifies to himself any means, however monstrous and horrible, that he may choose to employ in his determination to make his own will prevail. "The Germans stand nearest to God's throne," says one poet. "Thou ceuldst not lay in purer hands the golden crown of victory." But the Germans are not content to be morally superior to otker>natio»9; they have a special vested interest in God Himself. "The deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war," says a leading theologian, "is the German God—not the national God to whom inferior peoples pray, but the national God who belongs to us." And the relation between God and Germany is very aptly summarised is the following phrases selected almost at random from this extraordinary collection: "If God is with us who can be against us? It is enough, for us to be a part of God. . ,

The German nation is God's seed-corn fcr the future. ; . Germany is the pivot of God's plans for the world. . . Germany is the future of humanity. . . The deepest trait in the German character is passionate love of right, of justice, of nionlity. That is something which the other peoples lack. . . The Carman soul is the, world's soul. God and Germany belong to each other. . . The German soul is God's soul; it must and will dominate humanity." As to the tone and temper of these exhortations, in which the spiritual guides of the German people are urging them to their task, the following version of the Lord's Prayer, as addressed to the German God, is highly instructive: "Though the warrior's bread be scant, do Thou give daily death and tenfold woe to our enemies. Forgive in Thy mercy every t.ullet and every Wow wherewith we fail to strike home. Lead us not into the temptation of executing too mildly Thy divine judgment. Deliver us and our ally from the fiend in hell and his servants upon earth. Thine is the' Kingdom, the German land; muy we, by help of Thy mailed fist, win the Power and the Glory." Naturally thij exponents of the new Teutonic faith sometimes allow their enthusiasm to get ahead of their sense of humor, as witness the followThou, who are enthroned on high, above Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins (!), Thou, whose sword is the lightning and whose cannon the thunder, 3end down thunder, lightning, hail and tempest upon the heads of our foes, and hurl them headlong into the dark deathpits." The conception of the Zeppelins assisting the Cherubim and the Seraphim in their coral symphonies around the Throne of the Most High could liard'y have occurred to anyone but-a Genua:.

megalomaniac in a, passion. And, as a matter of fact, there is as much bad temper as lack of the saving grace of humor in this wonderful book. Our readers will hardly need to be assured that the wrath of these German zealots is directed more particularly against England. For they are fighting "the battle of the spirit against the depravity, mendacity and devilish malice of the whole world," and England more especially, "which reads the Bible daily, and makes a boast of its observance of Sunday," "animated by the lowest and vilest motives, by envy, jealousy and egoism drenches humanity with blood and death, and herself sits scornfully smiling in the background, and looks on with glee while other peoples at her bidding are tearing each other to pieces." Against such s foe as this, treacherous, vindictive and cowardly, all measures are justifiable; and so the German God is invoked with enthusiasm to hurl destruction at His most detested foes. "We hate arrogance and selfishness, treachery and cruelty, falsehood and hypocrisy. We will ruthlessly combat these satanic powers, and use every method of destruction, however terrible. We cannot do otherwise; bul the human beings who must be destroyed we do not hate." It should be some con solation, as Mr. William Archer has observed, to the women and children murdered by the Zeppelin bombs to know that the Germans do not hate them., tut only their arrogance and selfishness and cruelty. In one sense it is impossible to treat these insane outpouring-', siriously; and when we come across in this marvellous book an ingenious parallel between Germany's war and the Passion of Christ—the Czar is Pilate, Prance is Herod, England is Judas, Serbia is Barabbas, Turkey is the Penitent Thief, and the centurion who glorified God, saying "Certainly this was a righteous man" is Sven Hedin—it becomes difficult to conceive the mental and moral condition of those who can read "Hurrah and Hallelujah" as an acceptable contribution to Germany's eas» against the civilised world. But, as the Auckland Star warns us, the follies and extravagances of insanity should not blind us to the dangers that lurk behind them; and it is simply because (he Germans as a people have collectively gone mad that nothing short of the absolute destruction of their power to do evil will satisfy the nations whom they lunp challenged to this desperate conflict, in defence of Right and Justice, and all that makes life worth living.