t dusk
with the members of his suite in the Garden of Gethsemane, piously
kneeling on the ground, pronounced a religious discourse on the Mount
of Olives, received the Holy Communion in the Coenaculum, that is to
say, the house in which, according to tradition, Christ celebrated
the Last Supper,--nay, he even preached a full-fledged sermon on the
occasion of the dedication of the Church of the Saviour at Jerusalem,
and traveled by road from Jerusalem to Damascus! And yet, destroying
all the romance and old-time glamor that might otherwise have
surrounded this imperial crusade, was the fact that he was a
"_personally conducted" Cook's tourist_, that his meals were prepared
by French chefs, that champagne was the ordinary beverage at his
table, and that, while tramcars were used to go about Damascus, the
railroad was selected by him to get back from Jerusalem to Jaffa!

Emperor William has a weakness for preaching, and it must be confessed
that he does it well. He possesses a very ready gift of speech,
and his fervent religious belief seems to serve as a species of
inspiration to his eloquence. Thus on board the Hohenzollern, during
his annual yachting cruise along the coast of Norway, he invariably
conducts divine service on Sunday morning, taking his place in front
of an altar erected on deck, upon which the German war-flag is
spread, in lieu of an altar-cloth. Luther's hymns, accompanied by the
trombones of the band, are sung. Then the emperor reads the epistle
and the gospel with great feeling, and recites the liturgical prayers
with considerable fervor. Next he preaches a sermon, which, as a rule,
is of his own composition, and extemporary, though occasionally he
will read the sermon of some well-known pulpit orator.

It has been observed that he is always much more indulgent in cases
of inattention on the part of the congregation when he reads a
sermon than when he preaches one of his own. Any sailor who has the
misfortune to fall asleep during the discourse is disciplined, and
his name figures, of course, on the punishment roll on the following
morning, when the day's report is presented to the emperor as the
commanding officer of the ship. If the sermon has been one of his
majesty's own composition, as a rule he allows the punishment to
stand. But if the discourse happens to have been of less illustrious
origin, he will almost invariably order the penalty to be remitted,
adding, with a smile of indulgence, that