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GOODWIN' S WEEKLY. 5 THE "BETTER GERMANY I .; ., By Rev, CHARLES AKED ;'.' fl (Dr. Aked was one of the expedition, organized by Henry Ford, that sailed on the Oscar II. He is an Englishman by birth and fl has been a popular preacher in London, San Francisco and New York. Editor) s H XHAVE learned that there is a "better Germany." There are men and women in Germany who refuse to hate Eng land. There are men and women in Germany who refuse to sur render the hope of renewed deep and lasting friendship with Eng land, who believe that even the war would not be too great a price to pay for an Anglo-American-German alliance safeguarding the peace and progress of the white races, for centuries to come. It is easy to catalogue crimes. The art of villiflcation calls for no special training. But if there is anything good in the thought of Great Britain about Germany, should .not a Christian minister delight to tell it to Germany? If there is, anything in the thought of Germany about England should not a min ister of Christ hasten to tell it to the English speaking world? If to publish in German newspapers throughout Germany an article about a sane and moderate England which refuses to hate Germany, is to be "pro-Ally," then I must be reckoned a fanatical pro-Ally; for this I have already done. If to write some thing of what I have learned about "a better Germany" is to label myself "pro German," why, I must needs wear the tag. Unto us also is committed a min istry of reconciliation! I was in Berlin ten days ago. I moved freely amongst all classes of per , sons, civil and military, of all shades of opinion. I talked with jingoes and I', with pacifists; with members of the general staff and with social settlement workers; with soldiers of international reputation, theologians to whom every M e'ducated preacher in the world is under obligation, and successful business ' jaen and men of affairs. I was with Count von Moltke in the Palace of the jGeneral Staff a few days before he died; I spent one of the happiest hours of iny life in the Royal Library with von Harnack, and another in the home of A'dolf Deissmann; I was in the home of Hans Delbruck, Treitschke's succes sor; I talked with the editor of the Berliner Tageblat in his office, and with Rohrbach, Germany's greatest political writer, at his club. I talked, with women who are leaders of wealth and with women who are leaders in social and moral movements. I talked with members of the government at the foreign office and in the vice-chancellor's palace. I talked with the Catholic, Erzberger, leader of the central party in the Reichstag, and with Bernstein, leader of the Socialists. I talked with officers of artillery, officers of infantry, and soldiers of tho rank and file. I talked with Christian pastors glad enough to hold out the hand of friendship to a brother minister who had come to a war stricken land with peace in his heart. May I add a personal word? It is important for the sake of clearness. When I say that I "talked" with these persons it must not be supposed that I exchanged polite greetings with them, mentioned the war, picked up some stray expression of opinion, and came away. It is to be understood that 1 discussed with them seriously and at length the problems of the war and of an eventual peace. In many cases I submitted to them written questions. Tho same questions were put, and in the same words, to all the persons I met. And this, amongst other things, I have learned: There is to be found in Germany at this hour a body of opinion which is moderate, reasonable, pacific. It a at once ardent and informed. It is pa triotic, of course. It demands a united and prosperous Germany, secure from attack, free to develop its own civilization, to feel its limbs and grow. But its vision is not narrowed to Germany It believes in free nations and free men. It has the international mind. It is possessed by the international spirit. And I have learned that it is terribly difficult for these men and women to be true to their convictions because everywhere, not least in America, their good is evil spoken of, and their peaceable words perverted to the injury of the Fatherland. In Boston last week I read of the "climb down" of Germany from the demands made by her a year ago, of the repudiation now or tne annexa tionist propaganda of the days of her military successes. The most devoted adherent of the cause of the Allies, the most furious opponent of the central powers, could not for one moment write in such terms, if he had been in Berlin and learned the facts. What are the facts with regard to annexation? There was a year ago and there is now an "annexationist" party, a mili taristic and jingo party such as may be found in America or England, France or Japan. These men say that they have won Belgium and a part of France with their blood, and mean to retain it. Yes ; but there was a year ago, evea as there i is now, -a determined anti-annexationist party beyond all comparison greater and more powerful than the jingoes whom they oppose. Who are the annexa tionists? What does the world know of them, individually and personally?' What in a year or ten years, will the world remember of them? '5 But the anti-annexatlonists, the men who will sway tho councila of empire" and rebuild the future, bear names which, to Americans and Englishmen, 'are faniiliar as household words. It is more than a year since they, published their H noble protest against annexation; and a writer does tho world, and not only H Germany, a dis-servico when 'he ignores this thirten-month-old document and H represents the "moderate" demands of Germany today as evoked by the fear H of ultimate defeat. H The pen that actually wrote the protest was that of Theodore Wolff I have H talked with him and I know. But von Harnack signed it, and Baumgarten and H Wellhausen, and Schuking, and von Liszt, and Welbruck, and Dernburg, and H Rohrbach and eighty or ninety others, all daring to soy to Germany: H "We subscribe to the principle that the policy of absorption or annexation I in the case of the peole accustomed to independence is to be. rejected" H And the suggested annexation they described then, in Jutf, 1915, as: H "A political blunder fraught with grave consequences and calculated not to jjH strengthen but to fatally weaken the German empire." I Many of tho signers of this declaration I saw. They stand where they stood I a year ago. They remain opponents of annexation. M v "The machinery of negotiation must be lubricated with peace, not with war," one of them, and he the greatest of them all,- said to me. And when I pressed him as to how widely the anti-annexationlst view prevailed amongst h the German people, ho said: II "The geographical position of Germany is not favorable to her economic HI development. Her greatest river ilnds its way to the sea through territory XI which is not her own. It would be overwhelmingly to her advantage to pos- sess the mouth of the Rhine. But there is not a sane man or woman in Ger- II many today who dreams ofi laying a predatory hand on the 'river-route' to the 11 sea which would be of inestimable valuo to the German people. Before the war IB began it would have been equally impossible to find in Germany1 a sane person jH who proposed to annex the territory contiguous to the mouth of the Scheldt. II Belgium was safe from us. And Belgium will be safe from us when the war II is over." And France! "What are you going to do with France?" I asked another I of the signers of the protest, a man who in two continents has served the Ger- I man empire, "What are you going to do with the parts of Franco occupied by II your troops?" l "Nothing," was the prompt reply, "leave them until the day that peace is I concluded." jl "What about Serbia and Montenegro?" I asked one of the best known fl editors in Germany; and after demurring that I ought to seek my answer in II Vienna or Budapest, he said, "Serbia must bo restored and Montenegro, too." fl Ought not these things to be known? Do we help the cause of England by II believing a lie of her foes? Do we serve the God of Truth by falsehood? Is it 11 pro-German to say that, along with a militaristic Germany, there is today "a J I better Germany" and that this abides? SI We have been asked to see something siinster in the phrase, "Berlin to II Bagdad." To the angry partisan it seems to convey tlie menace of German 91 exploitation and German aggression. I do not "feel called upon to dogmatize I about it. I can say, with only a desire for conciliation in my heart, that it II does not present itself in this light to some of the best Christians in Berlin with II whom I talked. To them, the phrase does more than visualize a railway. It I points to the regeneration of Asia Minor, to a Mesopotamia which shall flourish I and blossom as the rose. I I talked with a scholar who knows the world that lies between the Black jl Sea and the Mediterranean as few men in America know it. Familiarity with II his books may fairly bo demanded of any person who claims to know anything jl at all about the countries whence Christianity started upon its conquering II way. And this vision of the Asia Minor of the, future seemed positively to in- I spire him "The cradle lands of civilization," he said, "will recover from the II deadly blight of centuries. Regions potentially the richest beneath the sun will jl become once more the homes of happy men. German schools, German colleges, jl German railways, German enterprise and science and over the desert the l song of harvest home!" jl And still, the "better Germany" refuses to shut out a "better England" I from its view. For I have talked with scholars and with statesmen who see l "with the mind's eye, Horatio;" Great Britain joining in such development. I They refuse to believe that the evil results of this war ai .."permanent. To them II the losses are temporary. The gains will endure. They see Germany and Great 111 Britain brought together again by "a conimunity of interests, rivals, but friendly II rivals, in the commercial and industrial renaissance of Asia Minor, neither l seeking to exclude the other, both serving the high interests of the race." jjfl . ,', j$,now tnat there ls another Germany a worse Germany. All the world II J&Wfn111, But set out t0 teI1 something of "a better Germany." And these "are only some of the things that I have learned. From The Congregationalist. Jl