e allied powers
arrayed against us; entreat a civilized world (Kulturwelt) juggling for
mere turkey heads, to please grant us permission to do heavy and cruel
deeds, to wage fierce and headlong war! Already they seem prepared to
answer absolutely and unqualifiedly in the affirmative Luther's question
whether "men of war also can be considered in a state of grace."

They write and talk much about the great scourge of war. That is all
quite true. But we should also bear in mind how much greater is the
scourge which is fended off by war. The sum and substance of the matter
is this: In looking upon the office of war one must not consider how it
strangles, burns, destroys. For that is what the simple eyes of children
do which do not further watch the surgeon when he chops off a hand or
saws off a leg; which do not see or perceive that it is a matter of
saving the entire body. So we must look upon the office of war and of
the sword with the eyes of men, and understand why it strangles and why
it wreaks cruel deeds. Then it will justify itself and prove of its own
accord that it is an office divine in itself, and as necessary and
useful to the world as is eating, drinking, or any other work. But that
some there are who abuse the office of war, who strangle and destroy
without need, out of sheer wantonness--that is not the fault of the
office, but of the person. Is there any office, work, or thing so good
that wicked and wanton persons will not abuse it?

The organ tone of such words as these at last rolls forth once more in
their native land.

Therefore cease the pitiful attempts to excuse Germany's action. No
longer wail to strangers, who do not care to hear you, telling them how
dear to us were the smiles of peace we had smeared like rouge upon our
lips, and how deeply we regret in our hearts that the treachery of
conspirators dragged us, unwilling, into a forced war. Cease, you
publicists, your wordy war against hostile brothers in the profession,
whose superiority you cannot scold away, and who merely smile while they
pick up, out of your laboriously stirred porridge slowly warmed over a
flame of borrowed alcohol, the crumbs on which their "selfishness" is to
choke! That national selfishness does not seem a duty to you, but a sin,
is something you must conceal from foreign eyes.

Cease, also, you popular writers, the degraded scolding of enemies that
does not emanate from passion but out of greedy hankering for the
app