BEGINNINGS OF GERMANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16026, 18 September 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

BEGINNINGS OF GERMANY.

BY ARCHDEACON- MACMT7BRAY. Two thousand years ago Great Britain and Germany were alike untouched by civilisation. The wonderful civilisations of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome had failed to reach them; and the primitive state of simplicity and barbarism, with all its disadvantages and drawbacks, marked equally the Celt in Britain and the Teuton in Germany. About the beginning of the Christian era Roman power and civilisation began to touch both peoples. After a desperate struggle for liberty the Britons had to submit to the sway of 'Rome, and Roman civilisation made its mark upon the country and people. In the year 9 A.D., the Romans made a determined effort to conquer Germany, and met with one ol the most crushing disasters which ever befel the Roman arms. Varus, with three legions of Roman soldiers, invaded Germany, was entangled in the swamps and forests', and utterly destroyed by the warlike German tribes. This disaster to Roman arms proved a turning-point in the history of the German people. Roman power and civilisation, which dominated the Celtic people west of the Rhine, stopped short at that barrier, and the Teutonic tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe, from the Alps northward, retained their independence, and continued in their primitive condition for some seven centuries.

The importance of studying this people will be seen when we remember that they overturned the Roman Empire, sacked Rome, conquered the countries now known as France, England, Spain, and Northern Italy, and that *' in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners."

Gibbon, writing 140 years ago. and therefore unaffected by the feelings and passions of to-day, mentions some of the more important traits of character which rendered them such formidable enemies to the Roman power. He -writes v "In that primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, the first of historians who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts." After describing the severe climate of Germany Gibbon says: "We may assert that the keen air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the natives, who were in general of a more lofty stature than the people of the south, gave them a kind of strength better adapted to violent exertions than to patient labour, and inspired them with constitutional bravery which is the result of nerves and spirits." Of the arts of reading and writing the ancient German was wretchedly destitute; thev passed their li\#s in ignorance and poverty. Hunting game in their forests provided .them with food and exercise. Herds of cattle were their chief wealth: agriculture, beyond the growing of a little corn, was neglected. " The care of the house and family, the management of the land and cattle, 'were 1 delegated to the old and infirm, to women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in the . animal gratifications of sleep and food. War and danger were the only amusements adequate to his fierce temper. The sound that summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. To solicit by labour might be I ravished by arms was esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted -with disdain the authority of the magistrates." It is a marked instance of a curious persistence of character to find in Germany to-day the same military contempt of civil power. • „ But the "strength of the German tribes in their primitive simplicity lay in the purity of family life, which made them a virile and rapidly-multiplying people, able to pour out huge swarms, not merely of armies, but of tribes of men and women, who settled down in the different countries which were overrun by them. The Goths, under Alaric, and the Vandals, under Genseric, burst into Italy' and sacked Rome in the early centuries of the Christian era. The Franks, another Ger- | man tribe, swarmed over Gaul, the Roman territory -west of the Rhine, including the France of to-day. The Vandals swarm'ed ever Spain, the Angles and Saxons over England, and "the Lombards over Northern Italy. It is worthy ! of note that in all these cases the German conquerors were rapidly absorbed by the peoples they conquered, and new nations,. French, Spanish, English, and Italian, were brought into existence, with many traits of character quite different from those of the parent Teutonic stock. This facility for the German to be rapidly absorbed by the peoples among whom he lives is one of the grievances of the rulers of the German Empire of to-day. The defeat of Varus in the year A.D. 9 shut out civilisation for seven centuries from the Teutonic tribes in Germany, for the tribes that swarmed over the "Roman Empire and were absorbed in its civilisation did not return to Germany. But another consequence, and a far more important one in its bearing upon national character, -was the exclusion of Chris-* tianity from -the German tribes for hundreds of years after the French. English, Spanish, and Italians had come under the beneficent influence .of the Christian faith and Christian ethics. And,' not only ' so, but Christianity was excluded during the first three centuries of the Christian era, when the followers of Christ were subjected to fierce persecution; and when, therefore, those "who embraced the Christian faith did so because of a real belief in the crucified Nazarene as the Saviour of mankind. It is impossible to over-state what the German character has lost in losing this experience. _ When in the eighth century Christianity made headway in Germany, it was apt' to be • associated with Charlemagne. the Christian King of France, who first conquered the German tribes; and 'hence it was not Christ the despised and rejected of men. the Man of Sorrows, who had redeemed a fallen humanity, who appealed to their hearts; apparently they deemed the Christ, who was worshipped by Charlemagne, as mightier than their own Wodin or Thor. When Boniface, the English missionary to the Hessians. cut down the oak of Thor and was unscathed by the deity, the Hessians, deeming Christ must be mightier than Thor. embraced Christianity. They were not so much converted to Christianity as made adherents to that faith, and though lacking the inner spirit of Christianity, simply labelled themselves Christians. This is important, for in our own days we can see the worship of force, material and intellectual, is the most characteristic feature of German religion. This was foreseen by a German poet. Heine. 80 years ago: — " Christianity—and this is its highest merithas in some degree softened. but it could not destrov, that brutal German joy of battle. When once the taming talisman, the Cross, breaks in two, the savagery of the old fighters, the senseless Berserker fury of which the northern poets sing and say so much, will gush up anew. That talisman is decayed, and the day will come when it will piteouslv collapse. Then the old stone rods will rise from the silent ruins and rub the dust o'f a thousand years from their eyes. Thor. with -his giant hammer, will at last si)line up and shatter to bits the Gothic cathedrals."

D'"«raeli. afterwards Lord Beaconsfield. predicted 67 years a?o " that th«» intellectual march of intellect mielit lead to a revival of national idolatries, modified and dressed up according to the spirit of the age " This revival has become realised, in the teaching of Nietzsche. And just as the spirit of the old pagan religion has persisted, so in many rejects the character of the old paean Teuton has persisted. The Oerman has changed less in two thousand years than any other people in Europe.