The pastor of Wussow understood the sign of the cross in sword-cuts to mean crusade, and as such the war against France was viewed by all good Prussians. Bismarck and the village clergyman were at one in regarding the French people as the Beast of the Apocalypse, and Paris as Babylon. Such sentiments are not incompatible with Christian piety, for there must be militants in the Church. But where Bismarck ceases to be a Christian in the common acceptance of that term, is in his exaggerated contempt for almost all men as individuals.[35] His want of charity—we do not of course mean in almsgiving, for in this respect he is as generous as the Princess, his wife, allows him to be—is the most unamiable and disconcerting trait in his nature. Disconcerting because misanthrophy is an evidence of moral short-sightedness, begetting timidity and rendering a man incapable of forming disciples to carry on his work. Without trustfulness, a statesman can make no real friends. It may be said that uncharitableness like Bismarck's must be the result of many disenchantments; but a man who only keeps rooks and ravens must not complain that all birds are black. The men who were at different times Bismarck's most zealous helpmates—Count Harry Arnim, Herr Delbrück, Count Stolberg and Count Eulenborg—were all discarded as soon as they gave the smallest sign, not of mutiny, but of independence. Bismarck would not accept advice or remonstrance from them; he required on all occasions that blind obedience which is not loyal service, but servility. For the same cause he would never employ Herr Edward Lasker, whose great talents as a financier and parliamentary debater would have been of immense value to the monarchy. He has rejected the advances of Herr Bennigsen, the Hanoverian founder of the _Nationalverein_, who is now leader of the National Liberals; and those of Dr. Rudolph Gneist, who is one of the ablest politicians in Germany, but who had the misfortune to take the wrong side during the _Conflikt-Zeit_. Opposition, as Bismarck has often taken care to impress upon his hearers, shall never be _regierungsfähig_ so long as he holds office. He abominates the Parliamentary system which brings to power men who have begun life as demagogues agitating for the abolition of this and that, and who, afterwards, are obliged to make shameless recantations, or to quibble away their words. The contrary system of selecting for his assistants only men who have never sown political wild oats is, however, compelling Bismarck to rely now on such henchmen as Herr Von Puttkamer and Herr Hofmann. The former is the Chancellor's brother-in-law, an excellent subordinate, supple as a glove, but with no originality of mind or firmness that could enable him to remain Home Minister if he were not propped up in this post. Herr Hofmann is also a mere painstaking bureaucrat, who, if he did not hear the voice of command, would be quite inapt to think for himself. Of late Prince