GERMAN OPINION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16338, 22 March 1915, Page 9

GERMAN OPINION

BISHOPS OF THE FATHERLAND. THE UNCHRISTIAN OVER- ' ' CULTURE. (Fbom Oub Own Cobbesponjient.) LONDON, January 22. The WaT Pastoral issued by the Catholic Episcopate of Germany to the Roman Catholics of. the Fatherland is a most significant and striking document. It would not be fair to say that religion in Germany has altogether made ,way for the hard and cynical philosophy of which we have heard so much of late, .but it is a fact_that this appeal percolates through to England as the first breath of purely Teligious opinion on the war "which "wg •IL TeCeive ?l from Germ a n y. The diatribes of the statesmen and professors of Germany have without- exception discussed the war _ from the standpoint of Kraft, of political expediency, and of the paramountcy of the "State." Here in the War Pastoral, we get the first suggestion of a national responsibility to of "Christianity The bishops say : " We have celebrated Christmas as never in life before; Christmas in the world-war, serious and sorrowful, but also rich in grace, blessing, and supernatural joy. The war was a stern Advent school; it has brought us and our peoples nearer the Saviour. Like a hurricane the war burst on the cold clouds and the evil vapours of infidelity and scepticism, and on the unwholesome atmosphere of an un-Christian over-culture. The German people Tecavered their senses; faith returned to its right; the soul_ lifted up its eyes and recognised the Lord We saw-. His glory, as it were, of the. Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Following the attractions of grace, following the voice of their pastors, and the exhortation of their Godfearing Kaiser, the people entered the churches:■ and found there the Saviour • many found Him again who had wandered far from Him. Thus have these hard times brought us nearer to the Saviour. We could rejoice in" the especial mercies of His divine heart, and hear its beating throughout all the noise of war. It we thank for these salutary fruits of the war. It we thank for the glorious successes and victories with which Heaiven has blessed our-arms. The war is a iudsment for all nations afflicted by it, and therefore a loud call to penance and expiation. The time of war is a time of penance. % Woe to the nation which even this terrible chastiser can no longer brinoto penance; it is ripe for destruction, and even victory would be for it a defeat War opens the account-book of nations before the whole world; and registers the result of its reckoning in human blood. We do not wish to. busy ourselves with the account-book of other nations, but with our own; we do not want to examine the consciences of our ..enemies, but our own. We are innocent of the outbreak of the war; it has been forced upon us: that we can testify before God and the world, let we. do not want to .boast of our innocence. In us, too, the war has laid bare heavy guilt. Our people themselves have very clearly pronounced judgment thereon; things could not go on as they were. How often have, we bishops,' in our distress of soul, loudly bewailed the decay of' the religious and moral life. Now the war has again restored religion to its rights, and inculcated on mankind the Commandments of God with fire and sword. Into our country, too, had modern, anti-Christian, irreligious mind-culture considerably penetrated, an over-culture, unChristian-, un-German, and unsound in its whole being, with its external varnish and its internal rottenness, with its coarse pursuits wealth and pleasure, with its supermen as arrogant as ridiculous, with its dishonomable imitation of infected foreign literature and art, and even of the most shameful extravagances of female fashions. This is our people's, and therefore our own, most grievous fault. It demands penance and expiation. . . # True repentance blots out the guilt, but not all punishment; and the guilt of an entire nation is only expiatod- by the earnest penance anld radical conversion of the entire nation. In all Europe the nations stand opposed to eacji otilier in two hostile camps. The fire is already flaming from the west to the east. A great turning poin.t of the world's history has been reached. On the bloody field of battle the fate of the nations. is being decided. Everything suffers from the consequences of the war-,- and there is now hardly a household without a dead member to bewail. Still there is no end-in sight. It is certain that, much misery still, awaits us." "GOD STRIKE ENGLAND." Lest readers should think that the whole German nation is thus chastened in spirit, we may add a quotation from a new book by Dr Muller, a Bavarian Radical leader in the Reichstag. England, he says, has sent against Germany "robbers, beasts, and the scum of her prisoners."

" Both in the east and the west the war is carried on with absolutely bestial means, which recall the most terrible nigger wars in Africa, and whicih. will remain an eternal disgrace for the so-called nations' of Kultur. The war threatens to become the grave of all human feeling, and of all usages hitherto observed by civilised peoples. The lust of annihilation

'1 a^ n S the place of conscience. From the Emperor down to the poorest labourer not a man of us had thought of war. They fell upon us like hyenas in the night, and they send their robbers and their mercenary gang against our peaceful country blest by tile people's industry. This it is that makes our dispassionate people into passionate heroes, before whom the world shall shudder." French parents have received from the Germans letters found on the dead bodies of their sons. On the covering official forms has been scrawled: " Gott strafe England" (God strike England). And Field-marshal von der Goltz, writing to the president of Young Germany, sounds the Matant old note of tihe warmakers : " Germany needs the vigorous education of her youth also after the war, for even after peace has come there wit] l>e greater hatred and hostility against us. Therefore clap on your helmets tighter. Everywhere the people tranquilly adapts itself to its fate, which often snatches away half families. One is almost ashamed to be still alive. I am sorry to say I have got only quite a little graze under the left eye, which I sincerely regret."