we have been
appointed by God to preserve and direct, for their own welfare, the
people over whom he has given us power." These words are from a speech
made in 1897 at Bremen. In 1910, at Koenigsberg, he declares: "It was
in this spot that my grandfather in his own right placed the royal
crown of Prussia upon his head, insisting once again that it was
bestowed upon him by the grace of God alone, and not by parliaments
and meetings and decisions of the people. He thus regarded himself as
the chosen instrument of heaven, and as such carried out his duties as
a ruler and lord. I consider myself such an instrument of heaven, and
shall go my way without regard to the views and opinions of the day."

Prince Henry of Prussia, the popular, and deservedly popular, sailor
brother of the Emperor, has signified his entire allegiance to this
doctrine by saying that he was actuated by one single motive: "a
desire to proclaim to the nations the gospel of your Majesty's sacred
person, and to preach that gospel alike to those who will listen and
to those who will not."

This language has a strange and far-away sound to us. It is as though
one should come into the market-place with the bannered pomp of
Milton's prose upon his lips. The vicious would think it a trick, the
idle would look upon it as a heavy form of joking, the intelligent
would see in it a superstition, or a dream of knighthood that has
faded into unrecognizable dimness. Some men, on the other hand, might
wish that all rulers and governors whatsoever were equally touched
with the sanctity of their obligations.

It is somewhat strange in this connection to remember, that we all
wish to have our wives and daughters believers; that we all wish to
bind to us those whom we love with more sacred bonds than those which
we ourselves can supply. We are none of us loath to have those who
keep our treasures, believe in some code higher than that of "honesty
is the best policy." As Archbishop Whately said: "Honesty is the best
policy, but he who is honest for that reason is not an honest man."

Far be it from me to appear as an advocate of the divine right of
kings; but I am no fit person for this particular task if I have only
a sniff, or a guffaw, as an explanation of another's beliefs. History
sparkles with the lives of men and women, who proclaimed themselves
messengers and servants of God, obedient to him first, and utterly and
courageously negligent of that feline commodity