494. Where the people of Israel had to demand a passage through foreign territory, they were expressly enjoined first to offer the inhabitants peace (Deuteronomy, xx., 10). Only when the right of transit was denied them, was the sword to be drawn and the passage forced. In such a case ... Israel calls the wars in which it has to engage, wars of Jehovah. Its God is indeed a man of war, the Lord of the hosts of Israel. The Scripture even goes so far as to ascribe the subsequent corruption of the people to the fact that it did not completely annihilate the inhabitants of the conquered country.[46]--PASTOR M. HENNIG, D.K.U.W., p. 6. 495. If Belgium takes part in the war, it must be wiped off the map of Europe.[47]--R. THEUDEN, W.M.K.B., v., p. 10. 496. How our adversaries understood neutrality is most strikingly summed up in the following passage from the Paris paper _Le National_, which appeared as early as November 16, 1834 [!] "Le jour viendra ou ... la neutralite de la Belgique, en cas de guerre europeenne, disparaitra devant le voeu du peuple beige.... La Belgique se rangera naturellement du cote de la France!"--PROF. C. BORCHLING, D.B.P., p. 5. 497. A Belgian journalist who had ventured into Liege writes:--"The Germans behave quietly. What they require they pay for in ready money. The pigeons which nest in the Place St. Lambert have a corner of the place where they are fed. The Germans have respected this corner, though they have occupied the rest of the place."--PASTOR D.M. HENNIG, D.K.U.W., p. 91. 498. See what the war has laid bare in others! What have we learnt of the soul of Belgium? Has it not revealed itself as the soul of cowardice and assassination? They have no moral forces within them; therefore they resort to the torch and the dagger.--PROF. U.V. WILAMOWITZ-MOeLLENDORF, R., i., p. 6. 499. The fate that Belgium has called down upon herself is hard for the individual, but not too hard for this political structure (_Staatsgebilde_), for the destinies of the immortal great nations stand so high that they cannot but have the right, in case of need, to stride over existences that cannot defend themselves, but live, as parasites, upon the rivalries of the great.--PROF. H. ONCKEN, S.M., September, 1914, p. 819. 500. Our Chancellor has, with the scrupulous conscientiousness peculiar to him, admitted that we were guilty of a certain wrong [towards Belgium]. Here I cannot follow him.... When David, in the pinch of necessity, took the shew-bread from the table of the Lord, he was absolutely in the right; for at that moment the letter of the law no longer existed.--PROF. A.V. HARNACK, I.M., 1st October, 1914, p. 23. 501. We were in the position of a man who, being attacked from two sides, has to carry on a furious fight for life, and cannot concern himself overmuch as to whether one or two flowers are trodden down in his neighbour's garden.--PROF. DR. W. DIBELIUS, W.W.E., p. 5. FOOTNOTES: