"Consequently it is my idea that for the future our good Professor would do well to avoid treating of religion as such, on the other hand continue to describe unmolested everything that connects the religion, manners, and custom of the Babylonians with the Old Testament. On the whole, I make the following deductions:--
"2. We humans need, in order to teach Him, a Form, especially for our children.
"3. This Form has been to the present time the Old Testament in its existing tradition. This Form will certainly decidedly alter considerably with the discovery of inscriptions and excavations; there is nothing harmful in that, it is even no harm if the nimbus of the Chosen People loses much thereby. The kernel and substance remain always the same--God, namely, and His work.
"Never was religion a result of science, but a gushing out of the heart and being of mankind, springing from its intercourse with God."
It is anticipating by a few months, but part of a speech the Emperor made in Potsdam at the confirmation of his two sons, August Wilhelm and Oscar--two Hohenzollerns as yet not distinguished for anything in particular--may be quoted in this connexion. Naturally he began by comparing his sons' spiritual situation with that of a soldier on the day he takes the oath of allegiance: they were _vorgemerkt_, that is, predestined as "fighters for Christ." "What is demanded of you," the imperial father went on, "is that you shall be personalities. This is the point which, in my opinion, is the most important for the Christian in daily life. For there can be no doubt that we can say of the person of the Lord, that He is the most 'personal personality' who has ever wandered among the sons of men.... You will read of many great men--savants, statesmen, kings and princes, of poets also: but nevertheless no word of man has ever been uttered worthy of comparison with the words of Christ; and I say this to you so that you may be in a position to bear it out when you are in the midst of life's turmoil and hear people discussing religion, especially the personality of Christ. No word of man has ever succeeded in making people of all races and all people enthusiastic for the same cause, namely, to imitate Him, even to sacrifice their lives for Him. The wonder can only be explained by assuming that what He said were the words of the living God, which are the source of life, and continue to live thousands of years after the words of the wise have been forgotten. That is my personal experience and it will be yours.