Let the various conditions among which you must choose pass before you.  If you drift along in your torpor and your heedlessness, all the evils of slavery await you—­deprivations, humiliations, the scorn and arrogance of the conqueror; you will be pushed about from pillar to post, because you have never found your proper niche, until, through the sacrifice of your nationality and of your language, you slip into some subordinate place where your nation shall sink its identity.  If, on the other hand, you rouse yourselves, you will find, first of all, an enduring and honorable existence, and will behold a flourishing generation which promises to you and to the Germans the most glorious and lasting memory.  Through the instrumentality of this new generation you will see in spirit the German name exalted to the most glorious among all nations; you will discern in this nation the regenerator and restorer of the world.

It depends upon you whether you will be the last of a dishonorable race, even more surely despised by posterity than it deserves, and in whose history—­if there can be any history in the barbarism which will then begin—­succeeding generations will rejoice when it perishes and will praise fate that it is just; or whether you will be the beginning and the point of development of a new age which will be glorious beyond all your expectations, and become those from whom posterity will date the year of their salvation.  Bethink yourselves that you are the last in whose power this great change lies.  You have heard the Germans called a unit; you have still a visible sign of their unity—­an Empire and an Imperial League—­or you have heard of it; among you even yet, from time to time, voices have been audible which were inspired by this higher patriotism.  After you become accustomed to other concepts and will accept alien forms and a different course of occupation and of life—­how long will it then be before no one longer lives who has seen Germans or who has heard of them?

What is demanded of you is not much.  You should only keep before you the necessity of pulling yourselves together for a little time and of reflecting upon what lies immediately and obviously before your eyes.  You should merely form for yourselves a fixed opinion regarding this situation, remain true to it, and utter and express it in your immediate surroundings.  It is the presupposition, yea, it is our firm conviction, that this reflection will lead to the same result in all of you; that, if you only seriously consider, and do not continue in your previous heedlessness, you will think in harmony; and that, if you can bring your intelligence to bear, and if only you do not continue to vegetate, unanimity and unity of spirit will come of themselves.  If, however, matters once reach this point, all else that we need will result automatically.