“the words ‘von Gottes Gnaden,’ which Christian rulers join to their names, are no empty phrase, but I see in them the recognition that the princes desire to wield the sceptre which God has assigned them according to the will of God on earth.  As God’s will I can, however, only recognize what is revealed in the Christian gospels, and I believe I am in my right when I call that State a Christian one which has taken as its task the realization, the putting into operation, of the Christian doctrine....  Assuming generally that the State has a religious foundation, in my opinion this foundation can only be Christianity.  Take away this religious foundation from the State and we retain nothing of the State but a chance aggregation of rights, a kind of bulwark against the war of all against all, which the old philosophers spoke of.”

On the second occasion, thirty years later, the Chancellor’s theme was “Obedience to God and the King.”

“I refer,” he said,

“to the wrong interpretation of a sentence which in itself is right—­namely, that one must obey God rather than man.  The previous speaker must know me long enough to be aware that I subscribe to the entire correctness of this sentence, and that I believe I obey God when I serve the King under the device ‘With God for King and Country.’  Now he (the previous speaker) has separated the component parts of the device, for he sees God separated from King and Fatherland.  I cannot follow him on this road.  I believe I serve my God when I serve my King in the protection of the commonwealth whose monarch ‘von Gottes Gnaden’ he is, and on whom the emancipation from alien spiritual influence and the independence of his people from Romish pressure have been laid by God as a duty in which I serve the King.  The previous speaker would certainly admit in private that we do not believe in the divinity of a State idol, though he seems to assert here that we believe in it.”

In these passages, it may be remarked, Bismarck avoids an unconditional endorsement of the Hohenzollern doctrine of divine “right” or even divine appointment.  Indeed all he does is to express his belief in the sincerity of rulers who declare their desire to rule in accordance with the will of God as it appears in Holy Scripture.  In addition to his dislike of a “Christianity above the State,” the fact that he did not subscribe to the doctrine of divine right, as these words are interpreted in England, is shown by another speech in which he said, “The essence of the constitutional monarchy under which we live is the co-operation of the monarchical will and the convictions of the people.”  But what, one is tempted to ask, if will and convictions differ?