Great Heavens! If some day, this were to be
for him the avenging Commander's statue! [16]
But no, it cannot be, for has he not been converted? Is he not the
_summus episcopus_, who conducts the service in person? Has he not
composed psalms? Could anybody be more pious, a more resolute foe of
those vices which he pursues with such energy? Could any one be more
determined to be a pillar of the Church? In his interviews with the
delegates of the synod of the United Prussian Church, has not the
_summus_ said that the Reformation drew its strength from the hearts of
princes? True, you may say, that this does not sound very like a humble
Christian; but then humility had never anything to do with William.
At the administration of the oath to new recruits, after having held
forth to them on the subject of the hardships at the beginning of a
soldier's life, he added, "It shall be your reward when you have learnt
your trade, to manoeuvre before me."
December 13, 1891. [17]
The nations of Europe desire peace, and it has been so often proved to
them that they also desire it, who have been accused of furbishing their
weapons unceasingly, that it would be dangerous even for William II to
seem to be preparing for war, or rather that, having made ready for it,
he should be working to let it loose. And so it comes to pass that the
fire-eating Emperor and King of Prussia himself is compelled to play the
part of a bleating sheep "admiring his reflection in the crystal stream,"
and that he cannot even have recourse to the expedient, now exhausted, to
make it appear that either France or Russia are ravening wolves in search
of adventure.
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