not as
almoners who keep to the rear, but into the firing-line, rifle in
hand! Perhaps then they will get to know of the inner changes which
take place in so many of us. According to these chaplains, any one
who is without warlike enthusiasm is not a man such as our age
demands. To me it seems that we are greater heroes than the others,
we, who without being upheld by warlike enthusiasm, accomplish
faithfully our duty, while hating war with our whole souls.... They
talk of a holy war ... I know of no holy war. I only know of one
war which is the sum of all that is inhuman, impious, and bestial
in man; it is God's chastisement and a call to repentance for the
people that throws itself into war or lets itself be drawn into it.
God sends men through this hell so that they may learn to love
heaven. For the German people this war seems to me to be a
punishment and a call to repentance,--and most of all for our
German Church. I have friends who suffer at the idea of being
unable to do anything for the fatherland. Let them stay at home
with a calm conscience! All depends on their peaceful work. But let
the war enthusiasts come! Perhaps they will learn to keep silent.

* * * * *

"Why publish these pages?" I shall be asked by some people in France.
"What good is it, when once war is let loose, to arouse pity for our
adversaries, at the risk of blunting the ardor of the combatants?"--I
answer, because it is the truth, and because the truth substantiates our
judgment, the judgment of the whole world against the German leaders and
their policy. What their armies have done we know; but that they were
able to do it containing as they did such elements as those whose
confessions we have just heard, incriminates still more deeply their
masters. From the depths of the battlefield, these voices of a
sacrificed minority rise up as a vengeful condemnation of the
oppressors. To the accusations drawn up against predatory Empires and
their inhuman pride, in the name of violated right, of outraged humanity
by the victim peoples and by the combatants, is added the cry of pain of
the nobler souls of their own people whom the bad shepherds who let
loose this war have led and constrained into murder and madness. To
sacrifice one's body is not the worst suffering, but also to sacrifice,
to deny, to kill one's own soul!--You who