Blood and Iron: Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its Founder, BismarckGreusel, John Hubert
History
Blood and Iron: Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its Founder, Bismarck
Greusel, John Hubert
Bismarck, Otto, Fürst von, 1815-1898; Germany -- History -- 1789-1900
He has come to the conclusion that he has no stake in the Government,
that in short he is a victim to the machinations of plutocrats.
To read the American point of view, (1915) we, today, no less than the
Prussians and the Austrians, in Bismarck's time, are also about to
spring at each other's throats! There is little sentiment for National
unity; it is the East against the West, in Congress, and in the
newspapers it is the people against the plutocrats.
* * * * *
¶ Bismarck's career affords a classical instance, in these poor times,
of what a strong man, with faith in himself and his cause, can do
against all manner of obstacles.
Faith in himself was the essence of his power. Over and over, he made
clear that he regarded himself in God's hands, doing God's work, but
on what specific evidence he based this profound conclusion no human
being knows beyond Bismarck's own assertion. However, that power urged
him on. Naturally, in turn, the fire kindled by faith in himself at
last stimulated faith in a people, numbering some twenty-five
millions; a people who in the main had up to this time been political
atheists to Bismarck's dogma of a United Germany. This idea of faith
is a fact of such vast import that we dare not pass it lightly by.
* * * * *
¶ By an almighty wave of faith in themselves the German people ceased
playing the political craven; came out boldly for what they hold to be
their too long deferred birthright!
Here, the mental attitude of the German people passes beyond the
dogmas of politics or social intercourse whatsoever; it merges into a
mysterious world of reality, close and near yet baffling to describe;
expressing itself in an invincible National faith, now about to burst
forth, at last, and sweep all before it!
¶ This mental phenomenon exists in various forms, but the animating
impulse is ever the same.
The hymn-singing of Charles and John Wesley, whose appeals to
religious emotionalism filled the fields of England with tens of
thousands of weeping, shouting men and women, vastly excited as to the
state of their souls, is a type of faith beginning in a small way and
attaining National proportions. No historian could write adequately
the history of England without crediting great changes to the work of
the Wesley psalm-singers; women tearing off their jewels; men rising
in the multitude and calling on God to witness that henceforth their
lives would be pure and unsullied by sin; while under the excitement
murderers came forward and confessed crimes known only to themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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