But you, my dear fellow-countrymen, we are all thinking with one mind on what is now going on about us.  It is a very grave but a splendid time.  Whatever in the last analysis we shall go through, at present there is no longer any one of us who any longer regards life in the role of a blase or critical spectator, but each one of us stands in the very midst of life, and, indeed, in the very midst of a higher life.  God has of a sudden brought us out of the wretchedness of the day to a high place to which we have never before spiritually attained.  But always where life emerges, a higher life or merely life itself, wherever there is a thirst for life, there is it set close around by death, as at every birth when something new comes to the light of day, and so if the most precious thing is to be gained, then death will stand close by life.  But this we also know, that when death and life intertwine in this fashion, the fear of death vanishes away; in the intertwining, life only appears and full of life man goes through death and into death.  It brings to my mind an old song, the powerful song of victory of our fathers: 

    It was a famous battle,
    Fought ’twixt Life and Death;
    Life came out the victor,
    Triumphant over Death;
    Already it was written
    How one Death killed the other,
    So making mock of Death!

Death which is willingly met kills the great death and secures the higher life.  Death makes us free.  Thus spake Luther.

Let me say a few words in closing.  Before all of us there stands in time of crisis an image under which are the plain words:  “He was faithful unto death, yea, even to death on the cross.”  Now the time for great faithfulness has come for us, for this obedience for which our neighbors in former times have ridiculed us, saying:  “See, these are the faithful Germans, the men who do all on command and are so obedient!” Now they shall see that this great obedience was not mere discipline, but a matter of will.  It was and still is discipline, but it is also will.  They shall see that this great obedience is not pettiness and death, but power and life.

From the east—­I say it once more—­the desert sands are sweeping down upon us; on the west we are opposed by old enemies and treacherous friends.  When will the German be able to pray again, confessing: 

    God is the Orient,
    God is the Occident;
    Northernmost and Southern lands
    Rest in peace beneath His hands.

We shall hope that God may give us strength to make this true, not only for us but for all Europe.

Until then, since we see the very springs of our higher life and our existence threatened, we shout:  “Father, protect our springs of life and save us from the Huns.”

A Reply to Prof.  Harnack

By Some British Theologians.

Prof.  Harnack.

Honored Sir:  We, the undersigned, a group of theologians who owe more than we can express to you personally and to the great host of German teachers and leaders of thought, have noticed with pain a report of a speech recently delivered by you, in which you are said to have described the conduct of Great Britain in the present war as that of a traitor to civilization.