Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/537

Rh respect was the merit of the Chancellor the world knows, but it knows also how the old Kaiser himself, with restless care and zeal and in personal meetings and conversation, made his friendly relations with other monarchs of Europe tell for the peace of the Continent. And it is certain that the restraining words of the friendly and powerful old man not seldom fell heavily in the scale.

Thus he has in internal and foreign policies endeavored to perform, with personal care and zealous activity, that kingly duty which, together with the kingly power, he felt imposed upon him by God. This conception of monarchical power and duty was his political religion, to which he held fast with the strong pious faith of his nature and which he professed always with full sincerity. To those principles he stood with open visor, and the glory of this great national policy of his government and the hearty attachment of the people to the old father on the imperial throne helped him mightily to maintain them. It is therefore less astonishing that under his reign the development of constitutional methods did not make more progress, than that it has progressed so far. He stepped from the old time into the new, representing the spirit of the old time in its most successful, most venerable, most winning form.

The patriarch is departed, and with him the prestige of the patriarchal régime. There can be no second patriarch like him. When after that wonderful career from misfortune and humiliation to highest power, magnificent fame and almost unexampled popularity the old Kaiser at last closed his eyes forever, there appeared a spectacle such as the world had not seen in centuries. Not only the funeral pomp was extraordinary; not only did all the powers of Europe gather around his bier, even France, once so grievously struck by his hand, bringing a wreath to adorn it; but more than this: all