The fact that many people in pre-war Germany felt a distaste for the religious life must be ascribed to the misuse made of Christianity by the so-called “ Christian” Party, and to the shamelessness of the attempt to identify the Catholic Faith with a political party.
This fatal aberration provided opportunities for a number of worthless members of Parliament, but it caused injury to the Church.
But it was the whole nation that had to bear the consequences, seeing that the results it brought about in slackening religious life fell during a period when everything was beginning to slacken and shift, and traditional principles of morals and behaviour were threatening to collapse.
These rifts and cracks in the fabric of our nation might have gone on without danger, so long as no special strain was put upon them, but they were bound to cause disaster, supposing a rush of great events con¬ verted the question of the nation’s internal solidarity into one of decisive importance.
In the domain of politics also an observant eye could mark evils which, unless alterations and improvements were soon taken in hand, were bound to count as indications of the approaching decay of the Empire’s external and domestic policy.
There were plenty who watched these indications with anxiety and censured the lack of plan and thought in the policy of the Empire ; they knew its inner weak¬ ness and hollowness very well, but they were but mere outsiders in political life. Officialdom in the Govern¬ ment ignored the intuitions of a Houston Stewart Chamberlain with the same indifference as they do to-day. These people are too stupid to think out any¬ thing for themselves and too conceited to learn what is needed from others.