e utterances, not merely in his capacity of Emperor of Germany,
King of Prussia, and commander-in-chief of the entire German army, but
also in his self-assumed role of _Summus-Episcopus,_ or spiritual as
well as temporal chief of the Lutheran Church throughout the empire.
Such a speech was delivered on the occasion of the endeavor made by
certain members of the court circles to induce the Lutheran synod to
institute disciplinary measures against the Potsdam pastor who
had declined to accord the rites of Christian burial to Baron von
Schrader, killed in a duel by Baron Kotze, the encounter being the
outcome of the anonymous letter scandal already described. The synod,
however, thoroughly endorsed the attitude of the Lutheran minister in
question, and availed itself of the opportunity to pass a resolution
to the effect that no person killed in a combat of this kind, or even
dying from wounds received in a duel, could be regarded as having met
his death as a Christian, and as such entitled to Christian burial.

Curiously enough this view was endorsed by the gallant old General
Bronsart von Schellendorf, at that time minister of war, who, in
expressing his approval of the resolution, called upon the emperor
as commander-in-chief to take more radical steps for checking the
phenomenal growth of the practice of duelling.

William, however, declined to comply with the request, dismissed
the general shortly afterwards from office, and, on the contrary,
proceeded to condemn both the action of the synod and of the Potsdam
pastor who had declined to officiate at Baron Schrader's obsequies,
giving as the reason for his position in the matter the argument from
which I have just given some extracts.

This was by no means the first time that William found himself in
conflict with the provincial synods of the Lutheran Church in his
dominions. On one occasion the consistory of the Lutheran Church of
the Province of East Prussia, in which the imperial game preserves
of Rominten are situated, passed a unanimous vote of censure upon the
kaiser for having desecrated the Sabbath, and violated the secular
laws with regard to its observance, by giving a big hunting-party on
Sunday at Rominten. It was understood at the time that the consistory
would have abstained from taking this extreme step had it not been
for the comment excited throughout Germany by the somewhat malicious
juxtaposition in most of the newspapers of two articles, one of whi