king and sightseeing," remarked
the Herr Pastor.

I suggested that he was a guest, to be looked after.

"I can assure you," he replied, "that Mr. ------ had nothing to do
all day but read the newspapers, and drink tea with his
congregation. He did not take the trouble to grow his own
vegetables, and all he had to do was to preach on Sundays and
attend a very unruly Sunday school. His wife, too, was not dressed
as one of ours."

He explained to me that his own life was very different. He eked
out his minute salary by a small scientifically managed farm, and I
gathered the impression that he was much more of a farmer than a
pastor, for he deplored his inability to obtain imported nitrates
owing to the blockade. The only question on which he was at all
unorthodox was that of the Junkers and their regrettable power of
holding potatoes, pigs, and other supplies while small men like him
had been obliged to sell. He had a good collection of modern
scientific agricultural works, of which the Germans have an
abundance.

But while admiring the energy of the great capitalists and the
rational Liberal Party, the average clergyman tends towards
sympathy with the Agrarians. The pastor of the small towns and
villages, who is very much under the thumb of the local Junker or
rich manufacturer, has as his highest ambition the hope that he and
his wife may be invited to coffee at least twice a year. The
pastor's wife is delighted to be condescendingly received by the
great lady. Herr Pastor talks agriculture with Herr Baron, and
Frau Pastor discusses past and coming incidents in the local birth
rate with Frau Baron. Snobbery has no greater exemplification than
in the relations of the local Lutheran pastor and the local
landlord or millionaire.

A sidelight on German mentality is contained in a little
conversation which I had with a clergyman in the Province of Posen.
He knew England well, by residence and by matrimonial connections.

This is how he explained the battle of the Somme. I give his own
words:--

"Many wounded men are coming back to our Church from the dreadful
Western front. They have been fighting the British, and they find
that so ignorant are the British of warfare that the British
soldiers on the Somme refuse to surrender, not knowing that they
are really beaten, with the result that terrible losses are
inflicted upon our brave troops."

In this exact report of a conversation is summed up a great de