Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3825/In Darkest Germany

by E. G. V. Knox

IN DARKEST GERMANY.

(Being a humble appeal to English Divines, suggested by the attitude of Teuton Professors to the Belgian atrocities.)

Hear me, most noble missionaries who,
 Toiling on Africa's half-tutored shore,
Had words quite recently at Kikuyu
 Whereof the motley bard may say no more.

I would not dare to judge of warring creeds;
 It may be that the dark-skinned Hottentot
Has skill to balance up his spirit's needs
 And know that this is truth and that is not.

But there are sloughs of ignorance so deep
 That sect and rubric seem to fade away,
Souls unaroused as yet from barbarous sleep
 That have not glimpsed the prospect of the day.

These have no art to tell the wrong from right
 Who tot up two and two to sums unknown;
Uganda, relatively erudite,
 Has wants unfelt by Frankfurt and Cologne.

So, when the flags are furled, the trumpets mute,
 And soft-voiced messengers replace the guns,
Let it be yours to stifle old dispute
 And found a first-aid mission to the Huns;

Teaching them not at first the subtler things
 Of dogma, suited to a folk more wise,
Such gospel as ye bear to savage kings,
 But "steal no longer" and "have done with lies."

Tell them that murder is esteemed "tabu,"
 That the Red Cross is now a sacred sign;
Tell them no more than that; it wil be new;
 They have no need of ritual on the Rhine.

Let presently a non-sectarian school,
 Where knowledge shall be taught to Teuton men
That mumbo-jumbo is an out-worn rule,
 Be built at Heidelberg or Gottingen.

There shall the Vandal sages come and go,
 And learn at last why Belgium felt chagrin,
And pace the Prussian goose-step very slow,
 From class to class, with lots of halts between.

They shall attain in time, but not as yet,
 To starrier heights that now the negroes win;
Meanwhile your common goal is clearly set
 To wake the untouched blindness of Berlin.
Evoe.

 

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