William of Germany

vestigate the true meaning of a much-discussed phrase which, while suggesting nothing to the Englishman though he will find it stamped in the words "Dei grati

rly in Prussia, appears a sort of fetish, the worship of which begins in the public schools with lessons on the heroic deeds of the Hohenzollerns, and with the Emperor, as high priest, constantly calling on his people to worship with him. This view of the kingly succession may seem Oriental, but it is not surprising when one reflects that the Hohenzollern dynasty is over a thousand years old and du

s resolved that, supported by the army, it shall continue to be their appanage in the Empire. Government means guidance, and no one is more conscious of the fact than the Emperor, for he is trying to guide his people all the time. Frederick William IV once said to the Diet: "You are here to represent rights, the righ

written, if it is stamped, as Mary said the word "Calais" would be found stamped on her heart after death, on the heart and brain of every Englishman. The German Constitution is a written document in seventy-eight chapters, not fifty years old, and on which, compared with the British Constitution, the ink is no

al monarchy, properly so-called, with a political career for no common citizen. Neither system is perfect, but both, apparently, give admirable nationa

ny English people suppose that Germans generally must desire parliamentary rule and would help them to get it, for multitudes of English people are firmly persuaded that it is England's mission to extend to other peoples the institutions which have suited her so well, without sufficiently cons

nglish translation, "by Divine Right," has often been ridiculed by English writers. Lord Macaulay, it will be remembered, in his "History of England," ass

n that of the whole legislature, no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could deprive the legitimate prince of his rights; that his authority was necessarily always despotic; that the laws by which, in England and other countries, the prerogative was limited,

s the ideas on the subject att

Treitschke, writes of King Frederick William IV,

God Himself for the education of the people. Whatever happened in the State he connected with the person of the monarch. If only his age and its royal awakener had understood each other better! He had, however, in his strangely complicated process of development, constructed such extraordinary ideals that though he might sometimes agree in words with his contemporaries h

tion, in 1847: "Now and never will I admit that a written paper, like a second Providence, force itself be

last birthday of Emperor Willia

octrine of a power of the throne, divine, released from all earthly obligations. This m

speech he made to the Prussian Diet in 1847. He was spea

recognize what is revealed in the Christian gospels, and I believe I am in my right when I call that State a Christian one which has taken as its task the realization, the putting into operation, of the Christian doctrine.... Assuming generally that the State has a religious fo

thirty years later, th

to God an

er," h

and Country.' Now he (the previous speaker) has separated the component parts of the device, for he sees God separated from King and Fatherland. I cannot follow him on this road. I believe I serve my God when I serve my King in the protection of the commonwealth whose monarch 'von Gottes Gnaden' he is, and on whom the e

e to rule in accordance with the will of God as it appears in Holy Scripture. In addition to his dislike of a "Christianity above the State," the fact that he did not subscribe to the doctrine of divine right, as these words are interpreted in England,

n writers who have dealt with the topic, animadverts on the Hohenzollern obsession by the theory and attributes it chiefly to the romantic side of the Emperor's nature which was strongly influenced in youth by the "wonderful e

en years of his Chancellorship, made no parliamentary

t it and how the doctrine has been interpreted by his contemporaries. He made no reference to it in his declarations to the army, the navy, and the people when he ascended the throne. His first

e, and I intend with all my power so to administer this talent that I hope to be able to add much to it. Those w

e foundation-stone of a statue to his grandfather, King William, a few months

n of our House,"

ern and to lead the people, whom it is given us to rule, for their well-

ule in Prussia is formally claimed, occurs four years later at Koen

tor; as formerly the first King (of Prussia, Frederick I.) said, 'My crown is born with me,' and as his greater son (the Great Elector)

to the first Emperor William's

once more aloft and lent lustrous beams to a jewel which we should hold high and holy-that is the kingship von Gottes Gnaden, the kingship with its onerous duties, its never-endin

their ordinary English sense, the allusion to a divine right may be constr

ed on every side, his country the arena for barbarous robber-bands who had spread war and devastation throughout Germany for thirty years; how, with "invincible reliance on God" and an iron will, he swept the pieces of the land together, raised trade and commerce, agriculture and industry, in for that period an incredibly

f the House is conscious from the beginning that he is only an earthly vicegerent, who must give an account of his l

ee months later when talking to his "Men of B

Higher Power to whom I must later render an account. Accordingly I can assure you that not a morn

thus at times responsible for national misunderstandings. The Italian saying, "traduttore, tradittore," is the expression of a fact too seldom recognized, especially by those whose business it is to interpret, so to speak, one people to another. Language is as mysterious and elusive a thing as aught connected with humanity, as love, for example, or music; and it may be asserted with some degree of confidence that among every people there are ideas current, and in all departments-in law, society, art-which it is impossible exactly to translate into the speech of other nations. The words used may be the same, but the connota

well as "right." The point, indeed, need hardly be elaborated, and the Emperor's own explanation of the revelation of God to mankind, with its special reference to his grandfather which we shall find later in the confession of faith to Admiral Hollmann, is highly significant of the sense in which he regards himself and every ruling Hohenzollern as selected for the duties of Prussian kingship. It is the work of the kingship he is divinely appointed to do of which he is always thinking, not the legal right to the kingship vis à vis his people he is mistakenly supposed to claim. He regards himself as a trustee, not as the owner of the property. And is not such a spirit a proper and praiseworthy one? In a sens

n the creed of Islam Christ, as a prophet, comes fifth from Adam. In America there are thousands who believe, or did believe, in the agency of a Mrs. Eddy or a Dr. Dowie. And if this is so in matters of religion, itself only a form of the reasoning soul, why should it not be the same in morals or philosophy, art or science, government or administration: why should we not all accept

early in his reign, and at no time since has he insisted on a Heaven-granted right to rule. It was, no doubt, different with some of his absolute predecessors, but it was not the view of Frederick the Great, who declared himself "the first servant of the State." Moreover, it

or considers the expression "von Gottes Gnaden" an academic formula of government, or what is still more likely, as a moral and religious, not a legal, dogma, which yet expresses one of the leading and most admirable features of his policy as a ruler. If it is not so, he is inconsistent with himself, since he has repeatedly declared himself bound by the Constitution in accordance with which his grandfather