Under certain circumstances I love them; I am ready to grant them all rights but that of holding the magisterial office in a Christian State.

This they now claim; they demand to become Landrath, General, Minister, yes even, under circumstances, Minister of Religion and Education.

I allow that I am full of prejudices, which, as I have said, I have sucked in with my mother's milk; I cannot argue them away; for if I think of a Jew face to face with me as a representative of the King's sacred Majesty, and I have to obey him, I must confess that I should feel myself deeply broken and depressed; the sincere self-respect with which I now attempt to fulfil my duties towards the State would leave me.

I share these feelings with the mass of the lower strata of the people, and I am not ashamed of their society." And then he spoke of the Christian State: "It is as old as every European State; it is the ground in which they have taken root; no State has a secure existence unless it has a religious foundation.

For me, the words, 'by the Grace of God,' which Christian rulers add to their name, are no empty phrase; I see in them a confession that the Princes desire to wield the sceptre which God has given them according to the will of God on earth.