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never again would he lend his back or his legs, nor his hands nor his heart, to any purpose that served Adolf Hitler.
How did we err, and how did we sin, to allow the Reich so much power? How far back must we go—we, as a people—to undo each small step toward infamy?
We have nursed this cancer from our earliest days. How deep into the heart of Germany has the tumor spread?
We cannot excise this disease without bleeding our nation dry.
Herr Hitler had won the hearts of the people—or enough people, at any rate, for him to plant his boots in the Reichstag, where he stacked kindling for his fire. Desperate hearts are easy to secure.
In this world, evil heaps itself on evil, and the spire of unchecked power climbs higher by the day. This is a tower of man’s own building.
Somewhere, beyond the ragged edge of night, light bleeds into this world.
Music eases every pain we
don’t know we carry.
They are all too willing to shut their eyes, to pretend nothing evil has happened. They are even willing to accept that these things Hitler does, these things he says, are normal—that the Party has the right of it, and has been right all along. They are ready to believe, now, that mankind was always meant to hate his neighbor, to kill the weak and the outcast, since God first dreamed us into being.
Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed, without opposition, by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct.
They want you tired and distracted. They plan to burn this world down—our old ways of being. From the ashes they will build the world anew, after a fearful pattern, after their own bleak design. But the flames can only devour what we leave unguarded. So they will force you inward, if they can, to huddle over whatever small treasures the Lord has given you. When your back is turned, that’s when they’ll strike the match.
