e I ever been false to my
word? Falsehood and prevarication are alien to my nature. My actions
ought to speak for themselves, but you listen not to them but to those
who misinterpret and distort them. That is a personal insult which I
feel and resent. To be forever misjudged, to have my repeated offers of
friendship weighed and scrutinized with jealous, mistrustful eyes,
taxes my patience severely. I have said time after time that I am a
friend of England, and your Press--or at least a considerable section of
it--bids the people of England refuse my proffered hand, and insinuates
that the other holds a dagger. How can I convince a nation against its
will?"

And then as if to impress upon the world the belief that he was chosen
of God, the Kaiser repeatedly gave voice to such bombastic utterances as
when to his son in Brandenburg, he declared: "I look upon the people and
nation handed on to me as a responsibility conferred upon me by God, and
that it is, as is written in the Bible, my duty to increase this
heritage, for which one day I shall be called upon to give an account;
those who try to interfere with my task I shall crush."

THE "GOD-APPOINTED" HOHENZOLLERNS.

Again he expressed the same sentiment when he said: "It is a tradition
of our House, that we, the Hohenzollerns, regard ourselves as appointed
by God to govern and to lead the people, whom it is given us to rule,
for their well-being and the advancement of their material and
intellectual interests."

And finally in his address to the people in August, 1914, he said at the
beginning of war: "A fateful hour has fallen for Germany. Envious
peoples everywhere are compelling us to our just defence. The sword has
been forced into our hands. I hope that if my efforts at the last hour
do not succeed in bringing our opponents to see eye to eye with us and
in maintaining the peace, we shall, with God's help, so wield the sword
that we shall restore it to its sheath again with honor.

"War would demand of us an enormous sacrifice in property and life, but
we should show our enemies what it means to provoke Germany. And now I
commend you to God. Go to church and kneel before God, and pray for His
help for our gallant army."

This is the picture of "Kaiser Bill" whose egotism gave expression to
itself in 1910 when in a speech he said: "Considering myself as the
instrument of the Lord, without heeding the views and opinions of the
day, I go my way."

EMPEROR