Page:Above the battle.djvu/80

Rh True, I am very far from thinking that this monument of anti-Christian pride represents the spirit of the better part of Germany. I know how many noble hearts, moderate, affectionate, incapable of doing evil and almost of conceiving it, go to make up her moral strength; amongst them are friends that I shall never cease to esteem. I know how many intrepid minds work ceaselessly in German science for the conquest of the truth. But I see on the one hand these good people so over-confident, so tractable, with their eyes shut, ignorant of the facts and unwilling to recognise anything but what it is the pleasure of their Government that they shall know; and on the other, the clearest minds of Germany, historians and savants, trained for the criticism of texts, basing their conviction on documents which all emanate from one alone of the parties concerned, and by way of peremptory proof referring us to the ex-parte affirmations of their Emperor, and of their Chancellor, like well-behaved scholars, whose only argument is Magister dixit. What hope remains of convincing such people that there exists a truth beyond that master, and that in addition to his White Book we have in our hands books of every kind and of every colour, whose testimony demands the attention of an impartial Rh