It is he, too, who has originated the practice of christening with religious ceremonies the great guns furnished by Krupp for use afloat and ashore against Germany’s enemies; and on the blades of the swords which he has presented to his elder sons, and to his favorite generals and officers, there is invariably inscribed on the one side, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” and on the other, averse from the Bible, surmounted by the imperial cypher.

William has even gone to the length of drawing up an extraordinary argument in defence of duelling based upon quotations taken from the Bible.  The emperor takes as the text of his argument that verse of the writings of St. Paul, in which the Apostle declares that he would rather die than that anyone should rob him of his good name.  William infers from this that the most eloquent and forcible of all the fathers of the Church was prepared to fight to the death for the honor of his name.

“Nowhere in the Bible,” adds his majesty, “is there any prohibition of duelling, not even in the New Testament, which, unlike the Old Testament, is not a book of law.  Indeed, every attempt to use the New Testament as the basis for a new code of law has resulted in failure.”

With regard to the use made by the opponents of duelling of that law in the Old Testament which proclaims, “Thou shalt not kill,” the emperor draws attention to another portion of the Old Testament, wherein is mentioned that the sword shall not be carried in vain.  Then invoking St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, in which the Apostle exclaims:  “Oh! ye foolish Galatians.  This only would I learn of you.  Received ye the spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of the faith?  Are ye so foolish, having begun in the spirit, that ye wish to perfect yourselves in the flesh?”

The emperor declares that to twist the Word of God into a prohibition of duelling is nothing else than to perfect one’s self by the flesh—­that is to say to attribute an altogether material and common-place interpretation to what is meant spiritually.  He adds that this is just as reprehensible in the eyes of the Almighty as the attempts by the Pharisees to adapt the Mosaic law to their own convenience, attempts which were so bitterly denounced by Christ.

Finally, the emperor generally concludes this extraordinary exposition of his views by the following exordium: 

“He who after careful self-examination finds himself compelled to fight a duel, and whose conscience is clear of sentiments of hatred and of vengeance, may do so in the conviction that he is in no wise acting contrary to the Word of God, to the obligations of honor, or to the accepted customs of society.  As in battle, so also in the duel, which has been forced upon him in one way or another, he may say to himself:  If we live, we live in the Lord, and if we die, we die in the Lord, Amen.”