We are told even
the details of his clothes, which combine the military with the civil,
"An open tunic of light cloth, brown coloured; tight trousers, boots
and sword-scabbard of yellow leather, the insignia of a German General
of the Guards, a helmet winged with the Prussian eagle." A truly pious
rig-out forsooth, in which to go and kneel before the tomb of Christ!
They say that, in order to judge of the effect of this costume, William
II has posed for his photograph forty times.
The German Church in Palestine certainly never expected to see the
_summus episcopus_ adopting an attitude of extreme humility in that
country. If any simple-minded Lutheran were to address the Kaiser in
the streets of Jerusalem, after the manner of the Hungarian workman,
who saw the archbishop primate, all glittering with gold in his gala
coach, passing over the Buda bridge, William II would answer him in the
same style as did the archbishop: "That is just the sort of carriage in
which Jesus used to drive," exclaimed the workman. The archbishop
heard him, and leaning from the carriage door, replied: "Jesus, my good
fellow, was the son of a carpenter. I am the son of a magnate, and
Archbishop Primate of Hungary."
William II undoubtedly believes that he does Christ an honour in going
to visit Him. He goes in the full pride of a personality which sees in
itself all the great events of the past, gathered together as in an
historic procession. He goes, with all the pomp and circumstance of a
glorious omnipotence, he, whose diplomacy has made a protege of the
Khalif and a footstool of the Crescent--he goes, I say, to manifest
himself as the Emperor of Christianity.
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