ned them according to the will of God on
earth. As God's will I can, however, only recognize what is
revealed in the Christian gospels, and I believe I am in my
right when I call that State a Christian one which has taken
as its task the realization, the putting into operation, of
the Christian doctrine.... Assuming generally that the State
has a religious foundation, in my opinion this foundation
can only be Christianity. Take away this religious
foundation from the State and we retain nothing of the State
but a chance aggregation of rights, a kind of bulwark
against the war of all against all, which the old
philosophers spoke of."

On the second occasion, thirty years later, the Chancellor's theme was
"Obedience to God and the King."

"I refer," he said,

"to the wrong interpretation of a sentence which in itself
is right--namely, that one must obey God rather than man.
The previous speaker must know me long enough to be aware
that I subscribe to the entire correctness of this sentence,
and that I believe I obey God when I serve the King under
the device 'With God for King and Country.' Now he (the
previous speaker) has separated the component parts of the
device, for he sees God separated from King and Fatherland.
I cannot follow him on this road. I believe I serve my God
when I serve my King in the protection of the commonwealth
whose monarch 'von Gottes Gnaden' he is, and on whom the
emancipation from alien spiritual influence and the
independence of his people from Romish pressure have been
laid by God as a duty in which I serve the King. The
previous speaker would certainly admit in private that we do
not believe in the divinity of a State idol, though he seems
to assert here that we believe in it."

In these passages, it may be remarked, Bismarck avoids an
unconditional endorsement of the Hohenzollern doctrine of divine
"right" or even divine appointment. Indeed all he does is to express
his belief in the sincerity of rulers who declare their desire to rule
in accordance with the will of God as it appears in Holy Scripture. In
addition to his dislike of a "Christianity above the State," the fact
that he did not subscribe to the doctrine of divine right, as these
words are interpreted in England, is shown by another speech in which
he said, "The essence of the constitu