OF CERTAIN SAVAGE GODS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16567, 16 June 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

OF CERTAIN SAVAGE GODS.

AWAKENED BY THE GERMANS.

BT FRANK MORTON.

It seems that in the case of some of us faith outran discretion until quite lately: we were too -ready to' believe that the old gods were dead. We even (some of us made a mighty to-do about our prowess in banishing them from this eminently Christian world. And then the war came, and we learned better.

-For they are busy and afoot again, the fiercest gods of old; once again they are objects of the idolatrous worship of men for whom Christ died. Not in England, of course, or not openly; not in France or Italy. Among the simple Russians, maybe, adoration of Mary Mother is occasionally blended with some lingering esteem of a fierce one akin to Thor; but even there'the thing is unconscious, the last kick of a dying atavism. You must go to the enemy to-day if you want to see the high altars of the old gods once more blaring bright. The savag'est traditions of Yahweh have been outrun by the Teuton. To the Germans the God of the Hebrew seems a puling and over-merciful deity, cumbering the path of Junker ambition. They know that if you want a god who -"shall rejoice in savagery you must got right back to savagery for your god. There is nothing especially remarkable about that, in tlieir case; over and over >again through the ages savagery and a rather high development of material civilisation have gone together. Babylon was-civilised, though Babylon in many ways was strangely free; but you only need to glance into the Babylonian temples to convince yourselves that Babylon was savage. So the Germans, quite logically from their standpoint, have adopted the most bestial and ferocious of the Babylonian deities. They started with 'a wholesale sacrificing of virgins to the infamous Mylitta. They caused goodly young men to walk through unimaginable fires to Moloch. Their priests and prophets, forsook Christ in their hearts and made haste to chant the praise of Baal. And in all these religious exercises tho Teuton easily surpassed the darkest Babylonian record.

A Religion of' Blood and Hate. Having gone so far,' they stood still, and asked each other—What next? The gods of Babylon seemed too mild for this business after < awhile. What to do? \vell, your Teuton is,nothing if not studious. He thought him of the Aztecs; Here surely, if anywhere, were gods after his own heart.' The religion of the Aztecs was a religion of blood and hat*, only wiped out and overthrown when certain white men came to inculcate a religion of mercy and peace with terrible deeds of hate and blood. But your Teuton is above all things thorough ': he proved himself fully prepared to give the Aztecs godg their due. His call to them was clear, and in the place where they had slept these many centuries there was a' mighty roar ■and scuffle 'of awakening. ' Huitzilorftchtli upreared his heaving bulk and made himself ready for great things. Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs, with his robe of bloody crosses, gnashed his teeth with jov, and hungered eagerly to be at work Tipping flesh from sinew, crunching bone on bone. Tezcatlipoca thought, of, white bodies squirming beneath the: knife, and felt that this was truly; a good awakening. And the Teuton « went -on.?to' cry• aloud upon the" Fire Gods. " Xlubteuctli, whose victims are draped in flame, rose with a snarl, while all the earth trembled at the horror of his coming. ' And so the others sprang from, slumber in their turn and made obeisance. .> One is not Kaiser 'for nothing. - ■ ; • ,-• ■•' Learning New Things.

But, being Kaiser, one is shrewd.- The old gods bad to learn new things before /hey were let loose, in the van of the great marauder. ' They ( had each to don a crown of thorns, and none of them has yet learned to wear it comfortably. They had to be taught to sing—"DeutscWand über Alles," "A Mighty > Fortress is our God," and a lot of other things like that, and a' remarkably queer and blasphemous noise they made of it. _ They had to work double time and acquire exceptional appetites; and when now and then 'their stomachs turned, good Teutons had to be brought up to . show them an example. Strangest of all, the old gods had; to roll their eyes and talk about, the meroiful Christ, a god of whom they had not heard since bis name was roared across a fence of hacking steel as they were driven out into the dark ever so long ago. In their hearts they rather resented this talk of mercy, as an insult to the new strange god whose unfamiliar vicars on ' desecrated earth they happened for the moment to pretend to be. It was all exceedingly remarkable, i .......... ~.,...„, From Slave to Master.

War is, as I have said before, essentially a beastly and infamous thing; but we never knew how infamous and beastly till the fierce and ravenous old gods were once again aroused from sleep. ' ~ And tlje difficulty the Teuton has to face is this; that the gods he called up to be his slaves- bid fair to become his

. pasters. He fears them now as he fears no other hungry and insatiable devil of his worship. They are driving him already to an undreamt-of hell and the poor ignoble fool gasps and shudders as he goes reeling on, Playing with fire'is a dangerous thing, but playing,with -gods leads man into no end oft. trouble. The Christ insulted becomes the Christ avenging, and the latest Judas finds .'it no longer possible to betray his master with a kiss, ;■' ,' ' -. ■ • V , \ . - .No Time for forgiveness. Some poet has sung that "the sin God ne'er forgave is—to forget," and begins to look as if the Teuton has carried the sin of forgetting (past all hope of salvation. After tho first three months of hellish conflict the hope of. the Teuton was already dead; and during these, three awful years of war the wqrld has had time to get things into perspective, to take note and remember. A sin, even the basest, committed in anger and hot blood, is readilv forgiven;, for men in the. mass are gentle and tolerant creatures enough. But a vile sin committed' habitually through years of calculated ignominy is a 1 sin past forgiveness. To forgive Germany now must be to prostitute one's own soul, The hordes that dishonoured, women in the beginning have now .through long persistence dishonoured woman. The' ghouls that toyed with murder have made absolute their own damnation now that they have made of murder their pastime and their tradp. Politicians may forgive, for that, is in a sense their business; but .where shall forgiveness' be found among the broken hearts of outraged peoples? Shall you find forgiveness in the huddled "graves of little children and old people done viciously to' death Shall any man hope for forgiveness when in his denunciation the cries of desolate widows and anguished mothers go " J in, tremendous, tumult up to God? Cart a man go to the Highest leading millions of , starving orphans as his offering and plead for pardon in their name By comparison with the- heaped-up crimes of the Germans all other' abominations of all preceding ages show as the innocent amusements of erring men. ' ;i , '-V."* '- V \ Let us not talk of forgiving, lest in the' end we' be shamed to death. We have nothing to do with forgiveness now, we who are hound in honour to do with thoroughness and ".honesty our work as scourges of God.-^tNot! till the curse and menace''of this homfldjevil"; is wiped, from the earth 'dare w» ait down and try to forgive.' : 'y -; ?/•'-. ? :: *M "v?? '"j> .'; But .this awakening of the old-: gods— it is curious/- don't you' think!— Just., ft 1 sidelight: on anthropology!" "*■ , '■' • / . ■■■**. r. J