=Britain's Great Illusion.=[43] 453. The English regard themselves as the Chosen People, towards which all others are predestined to stand in a relation of more or less complete dependence.--PROF. U. v. WILAMOWITZ-MOeLLENDORF, R. pt. iv., p. 19. 454. Strange as it may appear to us, it is nevertheless unquestionable that all England has from of old been penetrated with the idea that her attainment of uncontested colonial and maritime power was not only to her interest but to that of the whole world, _the dominion over which God had Himself assigned to her_, and that therefore all means to this beneficent end were permissible and well-pleasing to God.--J. RIESSER, E.U.W., p. 10. 455. Just because the English found their national feeling on the consciousness of their kultural successes, and the belief that they alone are _God's chosen people on earth_, every desire of other peoples to assert equality of rights appears to their self-conceit an offence against the will of God.--PROF. A. SCHROeER, Z.C.E., p. 31. 456. The belief in the Kultur-mission entrusted to it by God, in preference to all other peoples, has grown into the very flesh and blood of the English people.--PROF. F. KEUTGEN, B.R.K., p. 7. 457. The English hold that they are literally descended from the ten tribes [!]. But we Germans do not base our relation to Israel on any such fleshly foundation. The German people are the spiritual, the religious parallel of the people of Israel, they are "the true Israel begotten of the Spirit."--DR. PREUSS, quoted in H.A.H., p. 213. 458. Many of the best, most unselfish and most modest Englishmen pray to God in all good faith that He would at last open the eyes of the German people, and especially of the German Emperor, that they may see how wrong and even sinful it is to place any further hindrances in the way of the expansion of the Kingdom of God on earth by "His chosen people," that is to say, the English themselves.--PROF. A. SCHROeER, Z.C.E., p. 12. 459. The Briton regards himself as chosen by Providence, the elect of the Lord, entrusted with a special _mission on this earth_, and placed under the immediate protection of Heaven, with a first claim upon all the good things of the earth.--"GERMANUS," B.U.D.K., p. 11. 460. Our duty to ourselves, and to our English fellow-creatures--since we would fain be, not an imaginary "chosen people" but true children of God--is to give them such a thorough thrashing that they may once for all be cured of the fatal illusion that they have established a monopoly in the dear Lord God, and that the rest of humanity is destined only to serve as a stool for their clumsy feet!--PROF. A. SCHROeER, Z.C.E., p. 70. 461. Perhaps the reason that England's power now stands in so great peril is that, in her self-deceiving vanity, she thought that God had guaranteed her the dominion of the world.--PASTOR M. HENNIG, D.K.U.W., P. 86.