We have said that the excitement raised by the publication of the Fragments was intense. There was in them more calmness of expression, and more apparent effort for truthful conclusions than many of the previously published works of the Rationalists had indicated. By and by, there sprang up a decided opposition to the work of Lessing; and from all quarters of the German church there came earnest and vigorous replies. It was surprising that there remained so much tenacity for the old faith. Lessing received the censure of many of the best and wisest men of his time; his publication of the Fragments was claimed to be a curse to the cause of truth. But he had accomplished what he wished, while his success was far beyond his expectation. He found that a large portion of his countrymen were not willing to cast loose from the old moorings of the Protestant teachings, and that, whatever the previous indications were, there was yet a deep undercurrent of attachment to the time-honored confessions of the church.

The movement employed by Lessing to find out what the people really believed is one of the shrewdest literary tricks on record. Without committing himself to what he issued, and watching carefully the effect of the Fragments, he began to publish his own views with no little assurance that he would prove successful. He learned that the Wolffian philosophy was becoming effete, and so he raised the cry, loud and clear, against its longer existence. He violently opposed the obliteration of all dependence upon the historical proofs of Christianity, and claimed that, in the matter of religion, the heart has a work not less than the reason. His principle was: overthrow this historical basis, and you endanger the whole edifice. He inflicted great injury upon the inflated, pompous Popular Philosophy, for he exposed its emptiness as but few were able to do. He opposed, with all the force of his rare satirical and logical power, the attempt of the Rationalists to substitute the intuitions of Reason for the dictates of the heart and for the promptings of faith. "What else," he asks, "is this modern theology when compared with orthodoxy, than filthy water with clear water? With orthodoxy we had, thanks to God, pretty much settled; between it and philosophy a barrier had been erected, behind which each of these could walk in its own way without molesting the other. But what is it that they are now doing? They pull down this barrier, and, under the pretext of making us rational Christians, they make us most irrational philosophers. In this we agree that our old religious system is false, but I should not like to say with you [he is writing to his brother] that it is a patch-work, got up by jugglers and semi-philosophers. I do not know of anything in the world in which human ingenuity had more shown and exercised itself than in it. A patch-work by jugglers and semi-philosophers is that religious system which they would put in the place of the old one, and, in doing so, would pretend to more rational philosophy than the old one claims."

It was difficult to tell what Lessing believed. His publication of the views of a doubter was of itself a proof that he agreed, to some extent at least, with them. This we must grant as a concession to his honesty and common sense. And when assailed by Goetze and others for thus attacking the faith of the church, he replied that, even if the Fragmentists were right, Christianity was not thereby endangered.[31] He rejected the letter, but reserved the spirit of the Scriptures. With him, the letter is not the spirit and the Bible is not religion. Consequently, objections against the letter, as well as against the Bible, are not precisely objections against the spirit and religion. For the Bible evidently contains more than belongs to religion, and it is a mere supposition, that, in this additional matter which it contains, it must be equally infallible. Moreover, religion existed before there was a Bible. Christianity existed before evangelists and apostles had written. However much, therefore, may depend upon those Scriptures, it is not possible that the whole truth of the Christian religion should depend upon them. Since there existed a period in which it was so far spread, in which it had already taken hold of so many souls, and in which, nevertheless, not one letter was written of that which has come down to us, it must be possible also that everything which evangelists and prophets have written might be lost again, and yet the religion taught by them, stand. The Christian religion is not true because Evangelists and apostles taught it; but they taught it because it was true. It is from their internal truth that all written documents must be explained, and all these written documents cannot give it internal truth when it has none. The Christian religion is distinguished from the religion of Christ; the latter, being a life immediately implanted and maintained in our heart, manifests itself in love, and can neither stand nor fall with the Gospel. The truths of religion have nothing to do with the facts of history.

With such opinions as these, expressed in great clearness and conciseness, who can fail to perceive that their tendency was to overthrow the traditional faith of the church in large portions of the Bible? Who is to be the judge of what is to be retained and what rejected? Indeed, if Lessing be right, the entire Scripture record might be abolished without doing violence to religion. The effect of his writings was decidedly skeptical. His view of Christianity was merely aesthetical, and only so far as the Bible was an agent of popular elevation, did he seem to consider it valuable. He did not dispute the facts of Scripture history because of the various accounts given of them by the inspired writers. Variety of testimony was no ground for the total overthrow of the thing testified. He retained the history of the resurrection in spite of the different versions of it. "Who," he asks, "has ever ventured to draw the same inference in profane history? If Livy, Polybius, Dionysius, and Tacitus relate the very same event, it may be the very same battle, the very same siege, each one differing so much in the details that those of the one completely give the lie to those of the other, has any one, for that reason, ever denied the event itself in which they agree?"

We may examine the entire circle of Lessing's literary productions, and we shall see, scattered here and there through them, sentiments which, taken singly, would have a very beneficial effect upon the popular faith in inspiration and the historical testimony of the Scriptures. But, unhappily, these were overshadowed by others of a conflicting nature, and though he did not array himself as a champion of Rationalism, he proved himself one of the strongest promoters of its reign. He considered his age torpid and sluggish. It was his desire to awaken it. And he did succeed in giving to the chaotic times in which he lived that literary direction which we now look back upon as the starting-point of recent German literature. The chief evil that he inflicted was due to the position in which he placed himself as the combatant of the avowed friends of inspiration. He was honest in his love of truth, but he loved the search for it more than the attainment. The key to his whole life may be found in his own words: "If God should hold in his right hand all truth, and in his left the ever-active impulse and love of search after truth, although accompanied with the condition that I should ever err, and should say, 'Choose!' I would choose the left with humility, and say, 'Give, Father! Pure truth belongs to thee alone!'"

The revolution which Lessing wrought in literature was only equaled by that achieved by Kant in the domain of philosophy.

It has been one of the historical features of German theology that it has ever affiliated with philosophy. The mathematical method of Wolf has been a severe blow to orthodoxy, and it was but partially counteracted by the work of Pietism. But the influence of that copyist of Leibnitz is only of a piece with the impression made upon theology and faith by every respectable innovation in philosophy. But Kant threw all others in the shade. He was the agent of a change in philosophical thinking, which was destined not only to reform the old systems of Germany, but to wield a universal power over modern thought. He had looked to England for his masters, and succeeded in gaining a thorough acquaintance with the grave skepticism of Hume and kindred minds. He shut himself up in his native Koenigsberg, and, in all his life, never traveled more than thirty miles therefrom. He had the memory of a pious Christian mother ever present to him, and no one can conjecture the probable influence that her example exerted upon his mental processes. The astute philosopher wrote of her with the deepest feeling of his nature when he said, "My mother was an amiable, sensitive, pious, and devoted woman, who taught her children the fear of God by her godly teachings and spotless life. She often led me outside the city, and showed me the works of God; she pointed me with devout feelings to the omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness of God; and inspired my heart with a deep reverence for the Creator of all things. I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and strengthened my first germ of goodness; she opened my heart to the impressions of nature; she awakened and advanced my conceptions; and it has been her instructions that have exerted a permanent and wholesome influence upon my life."

First an undergraduate and afterward a professor in the University of Koenigsberg, Kant quietly matured his principles, and was in no haste to communicate them to the world. He delivered his philosophy to his students in the form of lectures, and was extremely careful not to publish it until he was sure that his mind had arrived at its final conclusions. A student named Hippel, who had enjoyed his intimacy, was the first to give publicity to his opinions. He employed the medium of a novel. He forestalled their real author, and Kant was compelled to explain the matter openly as a breach of faith. Gradually the lecture-hall at Koenigsberg became full of hearers, who, in a little time, could gain admittance only with difficulty. The professor of philosophy was a magnet that drew to that bleak northern city students from all parts of the Continent. Finally the opportune moment arrived. Having written, rewritten, altered, and abridged until he looked upon his work as beyond his power of improvement, he now deemed his convictions permanently formed. So the Critique of Pure Reason entered upon its career of victory. The literary and thinking world had learned but a little of it in Hippel's book; and now there seemed to be no inclination to probe the concise language of the master's work, for the task appeared greater than the fruits would justify. This hesitancy was a glaring testimony to the loose thinking and careless literary habits of those days. But the haste with which Kant prosecuted the authorship of his work, apart from the thoughts employed in its elaboration into a system, furnishes some ground of apology for the failure of the public to fathom it. "I wrote," he says in a letter to Moses Mendelssohn, "this product of at least twelve years of diligent reflection within a period of from four to five months, paying indeed the greatest attention to the contents, but unable, borne away, as it were, upon the wings of thought, to bestow that care upon the style which might have promoted a readier insight into my meaning on the part of the reader."

Several years now pass by, and the great work is still neglected. Perhaps it is false, or mayhap it is ill-timed. Finally Schulze hits upon the difficulty when he conjectures that, if men only knew what was in the book they would not only read it, but be ravished with its contents. Thereupon he issues his Elucidations of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Now people begin to open their eyes. The work of Schulze is read by everybody, and in turn it serves as an introduction to the work of Kant. Soon the universities and reading circles demand it, and the whole land is suddenly transformed into a race of philosophers. The popularity of the work is boundless. It is written in a style adapted only to systematic thinkers; but no matter, it becomes a fashion to read it. It is the topic in stagecoaches and drawing rooms. Failure to have perused Kant's book is a mark of ignorance which receives rebuke on every hand. In self-defense every one feels bound to read it, if the continued respect of friends can reasonably be expected. The work itself is interlarded with new terminology and pruned expressions that betray the constant impress of the author's mind. So, in a short time, writers on the various sciences employ these very terms as at once the best vehicle for the conveyance of their thoughts and for accession to popularity. It has its opponents in Hamann, Jacobi, Reimarus, Tiedemann, and others; yet he is a bold spirit who dares to attack this object of universal favor. But the opposition is insufficient, and the Critique of Pure Reason is too strong for these hastily-conceived rejoinders. Every department of inquiry is powerfully affected by it. Religion, logic, metaphysics, law, psychology, aesthetics, and education are alike molded by its plastic touch. Holland and all the north of Europe are vocal with its praises.

And now we may ask, why such favor shown toward this new apparition? Let us delay a moment and examine the hard-wrought thoughts of this bachelor-son of an obscure saddler. Kant had been profoundly disgusted with the want of harmony in philosophical speculations. The disagreements that he saw in his own time were but the continuation of what, he had learned from history, was the fact in the days of the heathen sages. Following close upon the footsteps of Hume, he asked: "How far can human reason go? Where is its limit?" His Critique was the answer. He showed that, if the loose methods of thought were to be continued, philosophy, instead of being the hand-maid of religion, would be unworthy the attention of the most unlettered man. Hence he would recall reason from its lofty flights, and direct its attention solely to self-consciousness. Only by studying the powers of the mind as a datum, he held, can any positive results be gained. Using his own illustration of his work, he would do for philosophy what Copernicus had done for astronomy—reverse metaphysics by referring classes of ideas to inner, which before had been referred to outer, causes. He granted that, for some things, man's reason is sufficient. The existence of God, the doctrine of original sin, and the soul's immortality need no Scripture to reveal them. They are intuitive subjects of knowledge. But these truths are extremely limited; man needs what nature has not given him. Kant's distinction between practical and speculative reason was in favor of the former, since its aim was wisdom. But speculative reason is often exerted for its own gratification. Hence its results are frequently useless and ephemeral. His grand conclusion is, that no object can be known to us except in proportion as it is apprehended by our perceptions, and definable by our faculties of cognition; consequently we know nothing, per se, but only by appearances. Our knowledge of real objects is limited by experience.

With regard to the general character of the critical system of Kant, an acute author says: "It confined itself to a contemplation of the phenomena of consciousness, and attempted to ascertain by analysis, not of our conceptions but of the faculties of the soul, certain invariable and necessary principles of knowledge; proceeding to define their usage, and to form an estimate of them collectively with reference to their formal character; in which investigation the distinctions and definitions of those faculties adopted by the school of Wolf were presumed to be valid. It exalted the human mind by making it the centre of its system; but at the same time confined and restricted it by means of the consequences deduced. It discouraged also the spirit of dogmatic speculation, and the ambition of demonstrating all things by means of mere intellectual ideas, making the faculties of acquiring knowledge the measure of things capable of being known, and assigning the preeminence to practical Reason rather than to speculation, in virtue of its end—wisdom; which is the highest that reason can aspire to, because to act virtuously is a universal and unlimited, but to acquire knowledge only a conditional, duty. It had the effect of mitigating the dogmatical and speculative tendencies of the mind, and the extravagant attempt to prove everything by means of conceptions of the understanding. It proscribed mysticism and circumscribed the provinces of science and belief. It taught men to discriminate and appreciate the grounds, the tendency, the defects, and partial views, as well as the excellencies of other systems; at the same time that it embodied a lively principle for awakening and strengthening the interest attaching to genuine philosophical research. It afforded to philosophy a firm and steady centre of action in the unchangeable nature of the human mind. In general it may be observed that the theory of Kant constructed little; and rather tended to destroy the structures of an empty dogmatism of the understanding and prepare, by means of self-knowledge, the way for a better state of philosophical science; seeking in reason itself the principles on which to distinguish the several parts of the philosophy."[32]

Kant had but little to say concerning the positive truths of Christianity. He respected the character of Christ, and spoke reverently of the church and her doctrines. Morality, with him, was developed into religion, not religion into morality. The so-called revelation was only the mythical copy of the moral law already implanted in our nature. He believed in a universal religion. Everything peculiar and won by struggle should be given up; all strife of opinions should cease at once. Kant designed, in the main, to curb the illicit exercise of Reason, but his failure to indorse the great doctrines of our faith, because revealed, threw him on the side of the Rationalists. His adoption of God's existence, the soul's immortality, human freedom, and original sin, was not due to his belief in these doctrines as revealed, but as intuitive. He gradually became a devotee to his own method of thinking, and it was his aim not to teach what but how to think. He often told his students that he had no intention or desire to teach them philosophy, but how to philosophize. It was through Kant that the terms Rationalist,—one who declares natural religion alone to be morally necessary, though he may admit revelation,—Naturalist—one who denies the reality of a supernatural divine revelation,—and Supernaturalist—one who considers the belief in revelation a necessary element in religion, came into use, and Rationalism and Supernaturalism became the principal division of theological schools.[33]

As Descartes had broken up the scholastic philosophy by considering man apart from his experience, so Kant now gave the death-blow to the philosophy of Protestant Germany by looking at the mind apart from its speculations. "The moral effect of his philosophy," says Mr. Farrar, "was to expel the French Materialism and Illuminism, and to give depth to the moral perceptions; its religious effect was to strengthen the appeal to reason and the moral judgment as the test of religious truth; to render miraculous communication of moral instruction useless, if not absurd; and to reaewaken the attempt which had been laid aside since the Wolffian philosophy of endeavoring to find a philosophy of religion."[34]

Among the antagonists of Kant, Jacobi was perhaps the most powerful. He was not content that, in these metaphysical speculations, reason should reign supreme. His belief was that feeling was of as much importance as the deductions of the intellect. He mastered the various systems of philosophy and rejected them, Kant's among the rest, as unfit for the acceptance and pursuit of responsible beings. The two principles which furnish the key to his views were that religion lies in the feeling, and that this feeling, which exists in every man's heart, is not reflected, but original. His dissatisfaction with all systems induced him to term himself the Unphilosophical, and it was with utter disgust that he was led to declare the foundation of all speculative philosophy to be only a great cavity, in which we look in vain, as down into an awful abyss. With him, as with Coleridge, Faith begins where Reason ends.

The two bright stars after Kant were Fichte and Schelling. The former commenced with the system of the great Koenigsberg teacher, and developed it on the negative side, contending that the whole material world has no existence apart from ourselves, and that it only appears to us in conformity with certain laws of our mind. He aimed to found a system which might illustrate, by a single principle, the material and formal properties of all science; establish the unity of plan which the critical system had failed to maintain; and solve that most difficult of all problems regarding the connection between our conceptions and their objects. His views of God are the most glaring defect of his system. He contended that we cannot attribute to the Deity intelligence or personality without making him a finite being like ourselves; that it is a species of profanation to conceive of him as a separate essence, since such a conception implies the existence of a sensible being limited by space and time; that we cannot impute to him even existence without compounding him with sensible natures; that no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of the manner in which the creation of the world could be effected by God; that the idea and expectation of happiness is a delusion; and that, when we form our notions of the Deity in accordance with such imaginations, we only worship the idol of our own passions,—the prince of this world.[35]

Schelling was a man of ardent, sanguine temperament, and it was his natural proclivities that gave rise to his system of philosophy. He attributes a real existence to the material as well as to the immaterial world, but permits it a different mode of existence. He makes history a necessity. This natural philosophy conveys to us no knowledge of God, and the little it does reveal appears opposed to religion. What God performs takes place because it must be. Schelling created two opposite and parallel philosophic sciences, the transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of Nature. He was a pantheist in identifying the Deity with nature, and in making Him subject to laws. He clothed his ideas in the beautiful fancies of his own vivid imagination, and in him we find the poet, not giving forth verses from his lyre, but delivering philosophical oracles.

What Schleiermacher was to theology Hegel became to philosophy. He was the turning-point from doubt and fruitless theories to a more positive and settled system of thinking. He was, when young, a decided Rationalist; and his Life of Christ, though yet unpublished, is said by one who has seen it to be a representation of the Messiah as a divine man, in whom all is pure and sublime, and who made himself remarkable chiefly by his triumphs over vice, falsehood, hatred and the servile spirit of his age. He endeavored to explain the reason for Christianity in the world. He longed for a positive religion. His philosophy is reducible to a philosophy of nature, which has quite a different meaning from that of Schelling, for, with Hegel, it is only the expression of the passage to another being; and to the philosophy of the mind, which considers thought reflecting itself on itself, and showing itself by the mind in the sciences of law and morality, in the state, history, religion, and the arts. The religion which is deduced from this system may be said to consist of the objective existence of the infinite mind in the finite, for mind is only for mind; consequently God exists only in being thought of and in thinking. In the philosophy of nature intelligence and God are lost in objective nature. Hegel allows them a distinct and separate existence, but refers them to a common principle which, according to him, is the absolute idea, or God. In this case, objective nature is only the absolute idea going out of itself, individualizing itself, and giving itself limits, though it is infinite. Thus the intelligence of all men, and external nature, are only manifestations of the absolute idea. It is a mournful tribute that M. Saintes pays to his memory when he says, as the sum of his labors, that "he perverted all the Christian opinions which he attempted to restore." As little flattering is M. Quinet's testimony, that "he saw in Christianity no more than an idea, the religious worth of which is independent of the testimonies of history."

This was indeed a race of thinkers who have been equaled in strength in but few periods of history. Coming in regular succession, their systems sprang from Kant's philosophy, and constituted the growth of his wonderful achievement. They tended to withdraw the flippant spirit of criticism to a more serious and modest path of inquiry, and to make men look more at their own weakness than at their greatness. But what a mass of subtleties do we have to pass through to get at the substance of their speculations! There is something so unsatisfactory in the study of them, that we find relief only in the knowledge that the Bible contains the true basis of all sound thinking on the great themes connected with the well-being and destiny of man. The plainest statements of the word of God are more valuable than all these vaporings about the non-Ego, the Ideal, and Self-hood. Simplicity is bliss.

"Yon cottager who weaves at her own door Pillow and bobbins, all her little store, Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the live-long day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; She for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding and no wit; Receives no praise, but though her lot be such, Toilsome and indigent, she renders much; Just knows and knows no more, her Bible true; And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes Her title to a treasure in the skies."

But yet we grant to these men the meed of having meant well, and of reforming the philosophy and literature of their times. The immediate effect of their views was decidedly in favor of Rationalism, because they almost uniformly deny the absolute authority of the Scriptures. They grant too much to reason. While Kant would drive the truant mind back to self-contemplation, he terminates by giving to reason a value and dignity so great that it becomes entitled to decide upon matters of faith. Their theories, spun out at such length and concluding in so little satisfaction, make us rejoice that we have not to depend upon philosophy for guidance in matters of either the intellect or heart. They thought independently of the Bible, and here lies the ground of all failure to obtain positive results in metaphysics. The Scriptures furnish everything noble and real, and when philosophy aims to supply a substitute for them it always labors in vain.

We wonder at the tropic luxuriance of Schelling's thoughts, but we are soon convinced of their little practical purpose when we recall the fact that he considered the revelation of the gospel as no more than one of the accidents of the eternal revelation of God in nature and in history. If Schelling and all these strong minds had commenced their investigations with the word of God as their basis, there is no telling how far they might have ministered to an immediate and thorough revival of faith. But failing to do this, their work has been more doubtful and tardy. It is a very plain fact that the church cannot look to any other than to a Christian philosophy for the conservation or regeneration of her torpid powers. Never has she been thoroughly benefited by the immediate agency of any other system.

There is one way, however, in which speculative philosophy has indirectly proved the aid of religion. It has strengthened and quickened the mental action of the people, and they have through its agency, been able to look with clearer ken upon the truths of Scripture. However, after it has reached the goal of its task, we see so little that is truly valuable and worth preserving, that we are compelled to fall back upon the Christian revelation as our only chart on the troubled sea of metaphysical discussion. When we look at the field opened for thought in the word of God we find it ample and safe. It would be well for every young mind about entering upon the uncertain mazes of philosophical speculation, to ponder deeply over these golden words from Isaac Taylor's Saturday Evening: "That portion of Heavenly Wisdom which, under such circumstances, survives and is cherished, will be just the first articles of belief,—the Saving Rudiments of Spiritual Life. Of these the Head of the church himself takes care lest faith should utterly disappear from the earth. But beside the inestimable jewel of elementary knowledge—the price of which can never be told—does there not rest within the folds of the Inspired Book an inexhaustible store, which the industry of man, piously directed, ought to elicit; but which if men neglect it, the Lord will not force upon their notice? It is this hidden treasure which should animate the ambition of vigorous and devout minds. From such at second hand, the body of the faithful are to receive it, if at all; and if not so obtained for them, and dealt out by their teachers, nothing will be more meager, unfixed, almost infantile, than the faith of Christians."

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Kahnis: History of German Protestantism, pp. 145-165.

[32] Tennemann, Manual of History of Philosophy, pp. 407-408.

[33] Appleton's Am. Cyclopaedia—Article German Theology.

[34] Critical History of Free Thought, p. 280.

[35] Tennemann, Manual of History of Philosophy, pp. 429-430.



CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF THE WEIMAR CIRCLE—REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION AND HYMNOLOGY.

The systems of the great philosophical minds whom we have contemplated were remarkable for their harmony. As we now look back upon them we do not see shapeless and unfitting fragments, but a superstructure of rare symmetry and grace. Jacobi was the leaven of improvement, and it was the mission of that devout man to continue to some extent the habit of respectful regard for God's word among intelligent circles of society. All who were unwilling to become votaries of reason were his careful readers and enthusiastic admirers.

What we thus see developed in philosophy was equally manifest in regard to literature. There arose, as if by the enchanter's wand, a group of literary giants at Weimar, an insignificant town on the outskirts of the Thuringian Forest, who wielded an influence which was destined to be felt in coming ages. Through a combination of circumstances, Weimar became their common home. It grew into a modern Parnassus, and to this day bears the name of the German Athens. Karl August, imitating the example of Augustus Caesar, gathered around him as numerous and powerful a cluster of literary men as his scanty revenue would allow. He paid but little regard to their theological differences; all that he cared for was their possession of the truly literary spirit. His little principality, of which this was the capital, could not possibly be elevated into either a second or third rate power. All hope of great influence being cut off in this direction, he secured the presence of those chiefs of letters who gave him a name and a power secured to but few in any age. The town of Weimar possesses a calm rustic beauty by which the traveler cannot fail to be impressed. You see only a few traces of architectural taste, but the memory of the departed worthies who once walked the winding streets is now the glory of the place. There, the church where Herder preached now stands; near by, the slab that covers the dust of Wieland; yonder, the humble cottage of Schiller, with the room just as it was when the mute minstrel was borne from it to his home in the earth; across the brook is Goethe's country villa; and back in the grove, the table whereon he wrote. There is a quiet sadness in the whole town, as if nothing were left but the mere recollection of what it once was. How different the picture sixty years ago, when all the literary world looked thither for the last oracle from one of these high-priests of poesy! Book-publishers went there to make proposals for the editorship of magazines, or for some other new literary enterprise. Napoleon himself craved an audience with Goethe, and it is the strongest grudge held by the Germans against the master of their literature that the oppressor of the fatherland was not denied his request. Young men went to Weimar from all parts of Europe to kiss the hand of these great transformers of aesthetic taste. There was not a sovereign within the pale of civilization who did not envy Karl August's treasures. The story of the literary achievements, of the Platonic friendships, and of the evening entertainments of Weimar, forms one of the most remarkable chapters in the whole history of letters.

The name of Herder demands our prominent notice because of its intimate connection with the theological movement we have been tracing. He was eminently adapted to his times. Perfectly at home with his generation, he looked upon his contemporaries as brethren, and aroused himself manfully to serve them in every interest. We notice in all his works a careful study to meet the emergency then pressing upon society. We will not say that Herder wrote every work just as it should have been, and that he was evangelical throughout. This he was not, but he was greatly in advance of his predecessors. Amid the labyrinth of philosophical speculations it is interesting and refreshing to meet with an author who, though endowed with the mind of a philosopher, was content to pass for a poet, or even for an essayist. His was a mind of rare versatility. What he was not capable of putting his hand to scarcely deserved the name of study. In philosophy, practical religion, literature, church history, education and exegesis he labored with almost equal success. He was the instrument of God, not to raise each of the crushed elements of Christian power to a lofty vitality, but to contribute to the moderate elevation of nearly every one of them. It might be expected that his later writings would not abound in such hearty tributes to devout religious life as we find so glowingly expressed in his earlier productions. The atmosphere of Weimar favored a perverted growth. The personal acquaintance of the men who surrounded him increased his literary power but did not make his religion more fervent and powerful. His training had been in the old purifying furnace of Pietism. His father had been a rare specimen of that class of devout householders, who, back in the days of Spener and Francke, were the real glory of the German people. Young Herder was accustomed to family worship every day, when the hard duties of temporal life were forgotten by those engaged in singing, in the leisurely reading of the Scriptures, and in prayer. One of the first books that had fallen under his notice was Arndt's "True Christianity." It was this work that inspired him with that respect for religion which never left him in subsequent life.

Herder's creed was the improvement of man. He expressed it in one word, humanity. But by this term he meant more than most men conceive in whole volumes. With him, it was that development and elevation of the race for which every true man should labor. We do not come into this life with a perfect humanity; but we have the germ of it, and therefore we should contribute to its growth with unceasing energy. We are born with a divine element within us, and it is for the maturity of this personal gift that all great and good men, such as lawgivers, discoverers, philosophers, poets, artists and every truly noble friend of his race, have striven, in the education of children, by the various institutions designed to foster their individual taste. To beautify humanity is the great problem of humanity. It must be done; man must be elevated by one long and unwearied effort, or he will relax into barbarism. Christianity presents us, in the purest way, with the purest humanity.

Herder was greatly interested in the poetic features of the Bible. His work on Hebrew Poesy is full of his warm attachment to the inspired pictures of early oriental life and history. Whatever divested the Scriptures of this eastern glow received his outright indignation. He censured Michaelis for having criticised all the heart out of the time-honored and God-given record. He compared the critical labors of the Rationalists to squeezing a lemon; and the Bible that they would give, he said, "was nothing save a juiceless rind." He totally rejected the scientific reading of the Bible for common purposes; and maintained, with great ardor, that the more simple and human our reading of God's word is, the nearer do we approach God's will. We must make use of our own thoughts, and we must imagine living scenes, with the inspired words as our thought-outlines. The whole policy of the new class of critics, he believed, was a thoroughly mistaken one. Instead of discarding the pictorial Biblical beauties, as they did with a few hasty dashes of the pen, he would elevate them to a loftier status, and lead the rising generation to imbibe their spirit as a useful element for later life. In his opinion, many of the Rationalists had not the keen insight into the marvelous beauty of the Bible which all should possess who would undertake to elucidate its language and doctrines. They were, therefore, not competent to decide upon it. The only proper method of studying the Scriptures for the instruction of others is by the exercise of a fine poetic sentiment. Hence the best poet makes the best exegete. This reminds us of Schiller's idea of historiography. Schiller said that, in his writing of history, he did not intend to feel continually hampered by the sequence of events, but that he would write as his own imagination approved. High above facts would he place aesthetic taste. A beautiful fancy! But heaven be praised that all historians are not Schillers, and that all commentators are not Herders.

From this representation of Herder's tenacity for the records of inspiration, and particularly for the Mosaic accounts, one would be led to infer that his attachment was due solely to his lofty views of the supernatural origin of these revelations. But we cannot think this was the fact. A careful estimate of his underlying sympathies leads us to conclude that he loved the Bible, not because it was inspired, as much as because it was the highest, earliest, and simplest embodiment of poetry,—for it traces out those things in our history which we are most interested in knowing. The poetic beauty of the Scriptures entranced him. Had each chapter of our canon been written in stately prose, Herder would have been one of its coldest admirers. He ransacked the myths and legends of various nations, and dwelt upon the stories of giants and demi-gods with scarcely less enthusiasm than if discoursing on the building of Babel or on the gift of the law on Sinai. Herder disliked the theories of Kant with cordial aversion. Of course the Koenigsberg sage had nothing in common with the Weimar rhapsodist. Had Herder only given a prominence to his belief in the fact of inspiration equally with an admiration of the method of it, his service to the cause of practical religion would have been incalculable. Yet, in his views of the person of Christ, he was far in advance of the times. He conceived Christ not as a mere innovating teacher, but as the great centre of faith. His belief in the sufficiency of the atonement stands out in bold contrast with the barren faith of his Weimar associates, who had such lofty ideas of human excellence that they thought man needed only one thing more to complete his perfection,—his emergence from ignorance into taste and knowledge. But Herder could see an abyss of depravity in the heart along with the germ of excellence. He held that Christ alone was able to annihilate the former and develop the latter. He believed that the first three evangelists gave the human side of Christ's character, and that it was John who revealed his divinity. With these four accounts before us we cannot be at a loss to form a sound opinion on the mission of the Messiah. He came to seek and save the lost. What he accomplished could have been effected by no other agency. Herder's own words are: "Jesus must be looked upon as the first real fountain of purity, freedom, and salvation to the world." Of the Lord's Supper he said, on his entrance upon his pastoral duties at Weimar, "The Lord's Supper should not be a mere word and picture, but a fact and truth. We should taste and see what joys God has prepared for us in Jesus Christ when we have intercourse with him at his own table. In every event and accident of life we should feel that we are his brethren and are sitting at one table, and that, when we refresh ourselves at the festival of our Saviour, we are resting in the will and love of the great King of the world as in the bosom of the Father. The high, still joy of Christ, and the spirit which prevails in the eternal kingdom of heaven should speak out from ourselves, influence others, and testify of our own love." It is a lamentable reflection, however, that Herder's lofty views of the mission of Christ, which had been formed in the paternal home, were, in common with many other evangelical views, doomed to an unhappy obscuration upon the advance of his later years by frequent intercourse with more skeptical minds.

One of the chief services rendered the church by Herder was his persistent attempt to elevate the pastoral office to its original and proper dignity. He held that the pastor of the church should not be solely a learned critic but the minister of the common people. In his day, the pastor was considered the mere instrument of the state, a sort of theological policeman;—a degradation which Herder could hardly permit himself to think of without violent indignation. In his Letters on the Study of Theology, published in 1780, and in subsequent smaller works, he sought to evoke a generation of theologians who, being imbued with his own ideas of humanity, would betake themselves to the edification of the humble mind. He would eject scholasticism from the study of the Bible, and show to his readers that simplicity of inquiry is the safest way to happy results. He would place the modern pastor, both in his relations to the cause of humanity and in the respect awarded him by the world, close beside the patriarch and prophet of other days. And that man, in his opinion, was not worthy the name of pastor who could neglect the individual requirements of the soul. According to Herder, the theologian should be trained from childhood into the knowledge of the Bible and of practical religion. Youths should have ever before them the example of pious parents, who were bringing them up with a profound conviction of the doctrines of divine truth. To choose theology for a profession from mercenary aims would preclude all possibility of pastoral usefulness. "Let prayer and reading the Bible be your morning and evening food," was his advice to a young preacher. Some of the most eloquent words from his pen were written against the customary moral preaching which so much afflicted him. "Why don't you come down from your pulpits," he asks, "for they cannot be of any advantage to you in preaching such things? What is the use of all these Gothic churches, altars, and such matters? No, indeed! Religion, true religion, must return to the exercise of its original functions, or a preacher will become the most indefinite, idle, and indifferent thing on earth. Teachers of religion, true servants of God's word, what have you to do in our century? The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send out laborers who will be something more than bare teachers of wisdom and virtue. More than this, Help yourselves!"

The counsel given by Herder to others was practised first by himself. He lived among critical minds, who spurned humble pastoral work, but he felt it his duty, and therefore discharged it to the best of his ability. His preaching was richly lucid, and not directed to the most intelligent portion of his auditors. He took up a plain truth and strove to make it plainer. Yet, while the masses were most benefited by his simplicity of pulpit conversation, those gifted men who thought with him arose from their seats profoundly impressed with the dignity and value of the gospel. A witty writer of the time, Sturz, gives an account of Herder's preaching that throws some light upon the manner in which the plain, earnest exposition of God's word always affected the indifferent auditor. "You should have seen," says this man, "how every rustling sound was hushed and each curious glance was chained upon him in a very few minutes. We were as still as a Moravian congregation. All hearts opened themselves spontaneously; every eye hung upon him and wept unwonted tears. Deep sighs escaped from every breast. My dear friend, nobody preaches like him. Else religion would be to every one just what it should be, the most valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained the gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand simplicity which needed not to ransack the world for its wisdom, its figures of speech, or its scholastic arts. It was no religious study, hurled in its three divisions at the heart of stony sinners; nor was it what some would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. It was no cold, heathen, moral lecture, which sought nothing but Socrates in the Bible, and would therefore teach that we can do without both Christ and the Scriptures. But he preached the faith which works by love, the same which was first preached by the God of love, the kind which teaches to suffer and bear and hope, and which, by its rest and contentment, rewards bountifully and independently of all the joys and sorrows of the world. It seems to me that the scholars of the apostles must have preached thus, for they did not tie themselves down to the hard dogmatics of their faith, and therefore did not play with technical terms, as children with their counting pennies." William von Humboldt said of Herder's sermons that they were "very attractive: one always found them too short, and wished them of double length." Schiller spoke of his sermons as plain, natural, and adapted to the common life, and adds that Herder's preaching was "more pleasing to him than any other pulpit exercise to which he had ever listened."

Herder was the great theological writer of Weimar, and as such, his impression upon theology and religion in general was decided. Though he opposed the Kantian philosophy, because of its petrifying tendency, his antagonism was counteracted by others of the Weimar celebrities. Goethe and Schiller eclipsed all other names in their department of thought, and were the culmination of the new type of literature. Herder might preach, but it was only to a comparatively small world. Goethe and Schiller were, on all points of literature, the oracles of Europe. Like Kant, they stamped their own impress upon theology, which at that day was plastic and weak beyond all conception. Under the Koenigsberg thinker it became a great philosophical system as cold as Mont Blanc. Then came Poetry and Romance, which, though they could give a fresh glow to the face, had no power to breathe life into the prostrate form.

Schiller shares with Goethe the loftiest niche in the pantheon of German literature. But the former is more beloved than the latter, for the reason that his countrymen think that he had more soul. Schiller endeared himself to his land because of his ardent aspirations to political freedom. The poet of freedom is long-lived, and France will no sooner forget her Beranger, nor America her Whittier, than the German fatherland will become oblivious of Schiller. Like Herder, Schiller had been trained carefully in household religion. In his earliest outbursts of religious feeling there prevailed that ardent and devout spirit which, had it been fostered by a healthy popular taste, might have matured into something so transcendentally brilliant and useful, that the writer of The Robbers would have proved one of the reformers of his people. If his education had reaped its appropriate harvest, his probable bearing upon the regeneration of Germany can be but faintly imagined by the aid of Klopstock's example. These were the sincere thoughts of Schiller's over-burdened soul when, one Sabbath in 1777, he addressed himself to the Deity: "God of truth, Father of light. I look to thee with the first rays of the morning sun, and I bow before thee. Thou seest me, O God! Thou seest from afar every pulsation of my praying heart. Thou knowest well my earnest desire for truth. Heavy doubt often veils my soul in night; thou knowest how anxious my heart is within me, and how it goes out for heavenly light. Oh yes! A friendly ray has often fallen from thee upon my shadowed soul. I saw the awful abyss on whose brink I was trembling, and I have thanked the kind hand that drew me back in safety. Still be with me, my God and Father, for these are days when fools stalk about and say, 'there is no God.' Thou hast given me my birth, O my Creator, in these days when superstition rages at my right hand and skepticism scoffs at my left. So I often stand and quake in the storm; and oh, how often would the bending reed break if thou didst not prevent it; thou, the mighty Preserver of all thy creatures and Father of all who seek thee.

"What am I without truth, without her leadership through life's labyrinths? A wanderer through the wilderness, overtaken by the night, with no friendly hand to lead me and no guiding star to show me the path. Doubt, uncertainty, skepticism! You begin with anguish and you end with despair. But Truth, thou leadest us safely through life, bearest the torch before us in the dark vale of death, and bringest us home to heaven, where thou wast born. O my God, keep my heart in peace, in that holy rest during which Truth loves best to visit us. The sun refuses to reflect itself in the stormy sea, but it is down into its calm mirror-like flood that it beams its face. Even thus keep my heart at peace, O God, that it may be fit to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent; for this alone is the truth which strengthens the heart and elevates the soul. If I have truth then I have Christ; if I have Christ, then have I God; and if I have God, then I have everything. And could I ever permit myself to be robbed of this precious gem, this heaven-reaching blessing by the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness in thy sight? No. He who hates truth I will call my enemy, but he who seeks it with simple heart I will embrace as my brother and my friend.

"The bell rings that calls me to the sanctuary. I hasten thither to make good my confession, to strengthen myself in the truth, and to prepare myself for death and eternity. O lead me in such a path, my Father, and so open my heart to the impressions of truth that I may be strong enough to make it known to my fellow men. They know that thou art their God and Father, and that thou didst send Jesus thy Son, and the Holy Spirit who was to testify of the truth. They can therefore have strength for every grief of this life, and for the sorrows of death a bright hope of a happy immortality.

"Now, my God, thou canst take everything from me, yea every earthly joy and blessing; but leave me truth, and I have joy and blessing enough!"

It was the young Schiller who wrote these ecstatic words at a time when he contemplated entering the ministry. A few years passed by, and all was changed. He grew into a sincere admirer, we might say worshiper, of the heathen faith. He complained that all the life and spirit were taken out of the Bible by the Rationalists, but he did nothing to remedy their error. He became absorbed in the spirit of classic times. The antiquity of Greece was far dearer to him than that of Palestine, and his poetic fancy was excited to a greater tension by the tales of heathen deities than by the histories of the Bible. He was a devotee of Kant, and his poetry was largely made up of that philosopher's metaphysics. Yet, in Schiller's hand, abstractions became living pictures. He knew how to speak clearly, and his popularity is evidence to the fact that his generations of readers have plainly understood him.

While Schiller represented Kant in verse, Goethe did the same thing with Schelling's philosophy. The influence of the latter poet on religion was very pernicious. He expressed himself favorably of the Bible, but he claimed that it could only educate the people up to a little higher stage of intelligence and taste. He was intensely egotistic, and totally indifferent to all religious belief. His false idolatry of art and his enthusiasm arrayed for heathendom, in all the beautiful charms of the most seductive poetry, had a tendency fatal to the cause of Christianity and to all public and private virtue.[36] He expressed himself sometimes as very favorable toward the Roman Catholic worship, and the adherents of that faith quote his words of approbation with evident pride. In his Autobiography he pays some high compliments to the seven sacraments of the Romanists. He made several visits to the beautiful little Catholic church dedicated to St. Roch, situated just above Bingen on the Rhine. He presented it with an altar-piece, and on one occasion said, "Whenever I enter this church I always wish I were a Catholic priest." But Goethe's love and admiration of Catholicism were due rather to his attachment to the old works of art than to that particular system of faith and worship. The Romish church was the conservator of the art-triumphs of the Middle Ages. She laid great store by her paintings and statuary, and had been the patroness of the arts ever since the wealth of noblemen and kings began to be poured into her lap. Goethe loved her because she loved art. The key to this only evidence of religious principle lies in his own words, as he once expressed himself on contemplating a painting of the old German school. "Down to the period of the Reformation," he said, "a spirit of indescribable sweetness, solace, and hope seems to live and breathe in all these paintings—everything in them seems to announce the kingdom of heaven. But since the Reformation, something painful, desolate, almost evil characterizes works of art; and, instead of faith, skepticism, is often transparent."

Our plan precludes an estimate of Goethe's literary achievements. But the influence of his productions on theology was, in the main, as destructive as if he had written nothing but uncompromising Rationalism. He was the head of the Weimar family. He had a cool, careful judgment. Schiller was excitable and impulsive; but Goethe was always stoical, regarding holy things as convenient for the more rapid advance of civilization, but not absolutely necessary for the salvation of the soul. He directed the literature of Europe. In popularity Schiller was his peer, yet in real power over the minds and lives of others no one was a match for Goethe. Other men at Weimar, such as Wieland, Knebel, and Jean Paul, were admired, but Goethe was the cynosure of all eyes. He was always thinking what next to write, and when he issued a new play, poem, or romance, a sensation was made wherever the German and French tongues were spoken.

Contemporaneously with these literary influences, which greatly increased the power and prestige of Rationalism, there was a gradual transformation of the training and instruction of the children of Germany. A thorough infusion of doubt into the minds of the youth of the land was all that was now needed to complete the sovereignty of skepticism.

It cannot be disputed that there were serious defects in the educational system already prevalent. The Latin schools instituted by Melanchthon were still in existence, but they had become mere machines. Children were compelled to commit the dryest details to memory. The most useless exercises were elevated to great importance, and years were spent in the study of many branches that could be of no possible benefit in either the professions or the trades. The primary schools were equally defective. There was no such thing as the pleasant, developing influence of the mature over the young mind. The same defect had already contributed to the spread of Rationalism, but the Rationalists were now shrewd enough to seize upon this very evil and use it as an instrument of strength and expansion.

Basedow was the first innovator in education, and, glaring as his faults were, he succeeded in effecting radical changes in the entire circle of youthful training. Sprung from a degraded class, addicted to vulgar habits, and dissipated beyond the countenance of good society, this man educated himself, and then set himself up as a fit agent for the reformation of German education.[37] He undertook, by his publication of the Philalethy, and of the Theoretical System of Sound Reason, to infuse new spirit into the university method of instruction. But he had taken too large a measure of his own powers, and therefore made but little impression upon the circle to which he had addressed himself. But, with that restless determination which distinguished him through life, he began to appeal to the younger mind, and contended boldly for the freedom of children from their common and long-standing restraints.

From 1763 to 1770 Basedow deluged the whole land with his books on education; and, uniting his appeals for educational reform with strictures upon the validity of the Scriptures, he incurred the sore displeasure of Goetze, Winkler and others of their class. They replied to him, but he was always ready-witted, and the press groaned under his repeated and sometimes ribald rejoinders. He told the nation, in an Address to the Friends of Humanity, that the old excesses would soon be done away with, since he was about to publish a work and commence an educational institution which would rid the children of the shackles of customary instruction. He solicited subscriptions for the issue of his elementary book, as it would require numerous plates, and be attended with other unusual expenses. His manifesto was freely circulated. Replies soon came to him, with liberal subscriptions from all parts of Europe. Princes and people became infatuated with his great plans and wrote him their warm approval. They remitted large contributions for his assistance. A specimen of his Child's Book appeared, and all classes were pleased with it. Whatever he promised was accepted with avidity, because his promises were at once so flattering and exaggerated. Schlegel and other educators tried in vain to make the multitude believe that the vulgar mountebank could never fulfill their expectations. Basedow proposed to parents, that if they would observe his system, all languages and subjects,—grammar, history, and every other study—could be learned, not in the tread-mill style, but as an amusement; that morality and religion, both Jewish and Christian, Catholic as well as Protestant, could be easily taught; that all the old bonds of education were henceforth to be broken; and that every great difficulty would hereafter be a pastime. Finally a part of the elementary work appeared. But one plan creating the necessity for another, he soon found himself immersed in the conception of a great philosophical school, in which not only children but also teachers were to be trained for the application of his new system to the appalling wants of the people. Every family became possessor of the elementary book, and all eyes were turned toward the Philanthropium in Dessau. Compared with Basedow's wishes, this was but a fragment of an institution. But upon its existence depended the solution of his lauded problems.

Just at this time Germany was stirred by the reading of Rousseau's works on popular education. Neither in Switzerland nor France had they effected the purpose for which they were written, but among the Germans their success was complete. Many persons, earnestly favoring Rousseau's doctrine of freedom from all conventional restraints in families, desired even his Idyls of Life to be introduced into the schools. Basedow and Rousseau thought in harmony; recommended that nature, not discipline, should be our guide in education; and that only those stories should be taught, of the utility of which the children are themselves conscious. Subscriptions came in profusely, and the Philanthropium in Dessau commenced its existence. It was opened without pupils on the twenty-seventh of December, 1774, and in the following year it was attended by only fifteen. It threatened to decline, but rallied again; and in 1776 a great public examination was held. Then Basedow retired from its curatorship; but, returning once more, his institution suffered under his care, and finally met with total extinction. The great bubble of his plans burst. People awoke to their mistake, and many of his dupes began to confess that, after all, the old system of education was the best that had been devised.

But there were men who had lighted their torches at Basedow's flame. Some who had been temporary inmates of his Philanthropium went to work with great perseverance to write juvenile books. Though the institution had tumbled to ruin, and public notice began to be turned from it, the excitement of the popular mind on the training of youth had been so intense that the subject could not soon cease to receive attention. For this reason, the writers of books for children found a large circle to read them, and become impressed by them. Herder had called attention to the subject of education in some of his most eloquent periods. He contended zealously for the development of the young mind. His own words were, "that it should be the chief aim of the teacher to imbue the child with living ideas of everything that he sees, says, or enjoys, in order to give him a proper position in his world, and continue the enjoyment of it through every day of his life." Jean Paul, in his Levana, or the Doctrine of Education, called attention to the necessity of the personal training of children by their parents in opposition to the old stiff method which, instead of quickening, only stupefied the intellect. Campe and Salzmann had been students in Basedow's Philanthropium, and subsequently each of them commenced a similar institution, but of more humble pretensions. Yet it was not so much as practical educators as by their writings, that they were instrumental in effecting a powerful impression upon the young mind of Germany. Campe's Children's Library had a fascinating influence upon children. It encouraged their literary taste to the exclusion of religious development. The author advocated morality, but only that which is taught by the common dictates of nature. He stoutly rejected the old Catechism of Luther as unfit to be drilled into a youthful mind, and, unhappily, he found many sympathizers. His Robinson the Younger was to the Germans what Robinson Crusoe was, and still is, to the English-speaking world, and from the time that the children read its wonderful stories they looked with disgust upon the less exciting histories of the Bible. From 1775 to 1785 it captivated every boy and girl who could collect groschen enough to buy a copy. When they had ceased reading it they were filled with the idea that they were naturally perfect.

Pestalozzi belongs rather to the present than to the last century, but he stands highest in the catalogue of the educational reformers who arose during the meridian strength of Rationalism. He was a Swiss by birth. In 1798 he went to Stanz and labored for the amelioration of the orphan children whose parents had fallen in the French wars.[38] His idea was, to make the school an educating family, into which the ease and pleasure of home should be introduced. He, too, believed in man's natural goodness, and held that true education is not so much the infusion of what is foreign to, as the educing of what is native in the child. But he warmly encouraged youthful acquaintance with the Bible, and said that the history of Christ is an indispensable ingredient in the education of every young mind. But while these few men, both by their active life and facile pen, contributed their share to the improvement of the youth of Germany, there was a large class of writers for the young, whose productions became as plentiful as autumn leaves. Some were sentimental, having imbibed their spirit from Siegwart, La Nouvelle Heloise, and similar works. Young men and women became dreamers, and children of every social condition were converted into premature thinkers on love, romance, and suicide. Whoever could wield a pen thought himself fit to write a book for children. There has never been a period in the whole current of history when the youthful mind was more thoroughly and suddenly revolutionized. The result was very disastrous. Education, in its true import, was no longer pursued, and the books most read were of such nature as to destroy all fondness for the study of the Bible, all careful preparation for meeting the great duties of coming maturity, and every impression of man's incapacity for the achievement of his own salvation.

The teachers in the common institutions of learning having now become imbued with serious doubts concerning the divine authority of the Scriptures, their pupils suffered keenly from the same blight. In many schools and gymnasia miracles were treated with contempt. Epitomes of the Scriptures on a philosophical plan were introduced. Ammon, in one of his works, tells the young people that the books of the Old Testament have no divine worth or character for us, except so far as they agree with the spirit of the gospel. As to the New Testament, much must be figuratively understood, since many things have no immediate relation to our times. Christ is a mere man. Dinter was a voluminous writer on theological subjects, and in his books tells children of imperfect notions of former times as to God, angels, and miracles. He gives teachers directions how to conduct themselves cleverly in such matters, and afterwards, in agreement with the principles he recommends, he lays down plans of catechizing. For example, there are to be two ways of catechizing about Jonah; one before an audience not sufficiently enlightened, and where all remains in its old state; another for places which have more light. In the prophecies concerning the Messiah a double explanation is given for the same reason. One is the old orthodox way, the other a more probable neological plan. A clever teacher is to choose for himself; a dull one may ask the parish clergyman how far he may go.

As a fair specimen of the kind of Biblical instruction then imparted to the children of Germany, we may adduce the example of Becker's Universal History for the Young. A second edition was issued in Berlin in 1806. Speaking of the person and character of Christ, the author says, "Jesus probably got the first notion of his undertaking from being a friend of John, and going often to his father's, who was a priest; and from the Gospel it appears that the sight of feasts and of the crowd of worshipers had a great effect upon him. It is doubtful whether Jesus and John were sent into Egypt for their education, or were taught by the Essenes, and then sent into Palestine as ambassadors of that sect, with secret support and according to arranged plan.... The indications of the Messiah in the Old Testament had produced great effect on Jesus and John who were both hot-heads, such as destiny raises for some great purpose. We are in danger, therefore, of judging them unjustly, especially from the great mixture of high and low, clear and obscure in them."

Becker had the modesty to say that he would not undertake to fix the character of Jesus, but merely collect the fragments of it from his wretched biographers. The friends had great mutual esteem, but John saw in Jesus a higher spirit than his own. Both had the same hatred of the priests, their pride and hypocrisy; both thought the Mosaic law no longer fit for the time, and that the notion of a national God was the source of all the evil in Judea. After long meditation they decided that Jesus must be the Messiah; and John found the part of a precursor fixed for himself. Christ, partly from his power of attraction, and partly from the hope of future power, made his disciples depend blindly on him. It was only with great caution that he could undertake his great work of destroying the priests. The people were divided into sects; and the characteristics of his plan were, his choice of the lowest people, and his withdrawing himself frequently from public view, that the priests might not nip his plan in the bud. As all the prophets had worked miracles, and many were expected from the Messiah, he too was obliged, according to Becker, to undertake them or renounce his hopes. No doubt he performed miracles; for the power of the mind on the body is such that we need not doubt his curing the melancholy and the nervous. As to the miraculous meals, raising the dead, curing the blind and deaf, these things must be attributed to the calculation of his historians; and we need not hesitate to do so after observing such tangible fabrications as Christ's walking on the sea, his blasting the fig tree, devils driven into the swine, and virtue going out of himself. In the story of Lazarus we cannot help suspecting some secret concert. Christ did perform some uncontested miracles, however and there was in his manner that inexpressible something which makes greatness irresistible. The mystic obscurity thrown over his future kingdom, the many parables he used, and his assured manner of speaking of future things, begot reverence. The prudence of his judgment and the strictness of his life are praiseworthy. He could pursue the destruction of old usages but very slowly; first he allowed the neglect of the Sabbath, and at last made open war with the priests, "on whom, he lanced all the thunder of a Ciceronian eloquence."

"John's death," continues this model writer for youth, "made Christ very timid. He got away into the desert and ordered his followers not to call him Messiah in public. In his last journey to Jerusalem, the multitude protected him by day, and he escaped by night. His answers, made to several questions at this time, for example, John viii. 3, are still admired. He had always suspected Judas; and as he had a presentiment that he would come to a bad end, he became very uneasy, and yet was able to exhort his disciples. He did not really die on the cross. Whenever recognized by his disciples afterwards, he went away directly, and came back unexpectedly and for a short time. At last he disappeared quickly, and let himself be seen no more. This end, like that of Lycurgus, produced many followers. By degrees all the tales of the crucifixion were extended and a Christian mythology erected."[39]

Becker was not more extreme in his inculcation of doctrine than many others. Even Gesenius, in the preface to his Hebrew Reading Book, tells the students of the Bible that Gen. i. 2, 3, contains the description of the origin of the earth by a sage of antiquity; that the narrator has a very imperfect knowledge of nature, though his description is sublime, that he can hardly be the first inventor of the description, as the principal outlines of it and even the six works of creation are to be found in other religions of the East; and that probably he only accommodates the general tradition of the East to the national opinions of the Hebrews,—a remark which applies especially to his ascribing a mystic origin to the Sabbath, a festival peculiar to the Jews.

Such was the kind of theology in which the German youth were trained during a period extending through the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. It is no matter of astonishment, then, that when those children became adults they were rigid Rationalists from the mere force of training.

We now come to one of the most inexcusable deeds with which Rationalism stands charged. We refer to the general destruction or alteration of the time-honored German hymns.

Both the great branches of the Protestant church had always highly prized their rich hymns, of which there were eighty thousand in existence. Some of the finest lyrics of any tongue were among the number. The sacred songs now used in our American churches are not solely of English origin, or of our own production; but many of the sweetest of them are free versions from the German hymnists. The Rationalists, not being content with their present laurels, began in great earnestness to despoil the hymn-books of the Protestant church of everything savoring of inspiration or of any of the vital doctrines already rejected. They looked upon those songs of devotion as composed during the iron age of truth, and therefore unfit to be sung by the congregations whose lot had been cast in the golden period. Should these verses continue to be sung by the church, they would remain a strong tie holding the masses to the pitiable days of effete orthodoxy. The Rationalists reasoned correctly, for, in Germany, music is a power which has at times defied the authority of popes and kings. It was, therefore, with a sort of savage satisfaction that these destroyers of truth began the work of denuding those earnest and evangelical hymns of all their vigor and nationality for the purpose of placing in their stead cold and heartless moral verses.

Klopstock commenced the work of alteration, though with a good intention, by remodeling twenty-nine old church hymns. Cramer and Schlegel followed in his steps. Soon the devout and animating songs of Gellert, Bach, and their brother minstrels were despoiled of the spirit that had ever made them dear to the popular heart and familiar to the common ear. By and by, everybody who could make a tolerable rhyme seized some of the master-pieces of hymnology, and set them up on stiff philosophical stilts. New hymn books were introduced into many of the churches, and the people sang Rationalism. General superintendents, consistorial counselors, and court preachers, rivaled each other in preparing a new volume of religious songs for the territory under their charge. Individual towns and churches had their own selections. Some portions of Germany, especially Wuertemberg, refused awhile to give up the old hymns, and certain writers of the sterling character of the poet Schubert, raised a loud and indignant voice against the wretched vandalism. But they could accomplish nothing, and the old hymns suffered that fearful mortality which the Rationalists had by this time become so able to inflict on almost everything of value. It is a lamentable scene to see those reckless doubters sit down with scalpel in hand to dissect as pure and inspiring hymns as are to be found in the devotional literature of any nation. For a good sacred song is only complete just as its author finishes it. If an authorized hymn committee attempt to alter it, they fill it at once with icicles. They can no more improve it by emendations than they can improve a rose by the use of a penknife. Each clipping or puncture destroys some natural charm.

But the music accompanying the hymns was doomed to a like fate. The old chorals, which had been lingering in those renowned gothic temples ever since the days of Luther, were so altered as to stand upon the same footing with the hymns themselves. All sentiment was extracted, as quite out of place, and sublimity was made to give way to a more temperate and stoical standard. In due time the Rationalists effected their purpose. Secular music was introduced into the sanctuary; an operatic overture generally welcomed the people into church, and a march or a waltz dismissed them. Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an element of devotion. The oratorios and cantata of the theatre and beer-garden were the Sabbath accompaniments of the sermon. The masses consequently began to sing less; and the period of coldest skepticism in Germany, like similar conditions in other lands, was the season when the congregations, the common people, and the children sang least and most drowsily.

We now behold Protestant Germany in the full possession of a shrewd, powerful, and aggressive system of infidelity. The most thorough student of church history must conclude that no other kind of skepticism has received more aid from external sources. Everything that appeared on the surface of the times contributed its mite toward the spiritual petrification of the masses. Hamann, Oetinger, Reinhard, Lavater, and Storr were insufficient for the great task of counteraction, while Rationalism could count its strong men by the score and hundred. Literature, philosophy, history, education, and sacred music were so influenced by increasing indifference and doubt that when the people awoke to their condition they found themselves in a strange latitude and on a dangerous coast. But they thought themselves safe. They could not see how each new feature in politics, literature, and theology was affecting them in a remarkable manner; and how so many influences from opposite quarters could contribute to the same terrible result,—the total overthrow of evangelical faith.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Moehler's Symbolism: Memoir of Author.

[37] Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. 2, pp. 33-41.

[38] Kahnis: German Protestantism, p. 216.

[39] Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany, pp. 178-181.



CHAPTER VIII.

DOCTRINES OF RATIONALISM IN THE DAY OF ITS STRENGTH.

The church now presented a most deplorable aspect. Philosophy had come, with its high-sounding terminology, and invaded the hallowed precincts of Scriptural truth. Literature, with its captivating notes, had well-nigh destroyed what was left of the old Pietistic fervor. The songs of the church were no longer images of beauty, but ghastly, repulsive skeletons. The professor's chair was but little better than a heathen tripod. The pulpit became the rostrum where the shepherdless masses were entertained with vague essays on such general terms as righteousness, human dignity, light, progress, truth, and right. The peasantry received frequent and labored instructions on the raising of cattle, bees, and fruit. The poets of the day were publicly recited in the temples where the Reformers had preached. Wieland, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe became more familiar to the popular congregations than Moses, David, Paul, or even Christ. By this time we might reasonably expect the harvest from Semler's favorite theories. There was no school as yet by which he worked upon the public mind, but the greater portion of theologians caught up scrap-thoughts from his opinions and now dealt them out in magnified proportions to the masses who, like their Athenian predecessors, were ever anxious to learn what was new. That so many influences as we have seen in force should completely subdue orthodoxy is not wonderful, when we consider first the minds that originated them, and then the dull and frigid condition of the church.

But, as the fruit of these influences, there was no common system of theology adopted by the Rationalists. The reason is obvious. Rationalism was not an organism, and therefore it could have no acknowledged creed. Its adherents were powerful and numerous scouting-parties, whose aim was to harass the flanks of the enemy, and who were at liberty, when occasion required, to divide, subdivide, take any road, or attack at any point likely to contribute to the common victory. One writer came before the public, and threw doubt on some portions of the Scriptures. He was followed by another who, while conceding the orthodox view of those very passages, would discard other parts, even whole books, as plainly incredible. A third discussed the character and mission of Christ, and imputed a certain class of motives to him. A fourth attributed to him totally different, if not contradictory, impulses. There is no one book, therefore, in which we find an undisputed Rationalistic system, for the work that may represent one circle will give but a meagre and false view of another. Besides, what the most of the Rationalists might agree upon at one stage of the development of their skepticism, would be rejected by others, living a few years after them. The only means, therefore, by which we are enabled to arrive at some understanding concerning their opinions is to fix upon the time of their meridian strength, and then to hear what their representative men of that period say of the truths of revelation.

Now it cannot be doubted that Rationalism was most powerful after the decided impression made upon theology by the philosophical direction commenced by Kant, and by that of literature inaugurated by Lessing and followed by the Weimar poets. We are consequently under the necessity of hearing the statements of acknowledged Rationalists who flourished during this time, and, out of the chaos, arrive at the most probable and general views entertained by the people.

We shall see that the scene of spiritual desolation was repulsive enough to make every servant of Christ wish, with Wordsworth,—

"I'd rather be A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn; So might I standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn— Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

RELIGION. All religion was held by the Rationalists to be mere morality. As to any such thing as conversion, they were agreed that it could be only a work of the imagination. All the regeneration at which we may reasonably expect to arrive is an inclination to obey the dictates of reason. He who follows the teachings of his own intellect cannot go astray, for this is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The Scriptures give a high coloring to religion, and represent it as necessary; but those writings are not as reliable as the innate revelation which every son of Reason enjoys.

EXISTENCE OF GOD. With this view of religion in general, all the other vital doctrines of Christianity suffered an equal depreciation. The existence of God is conceded, but the proof is impossible. His personality cannot be affirmed; it is confounded with the soul of the world. Of course, the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be accepted; for reason sheds no light sufficiently clear to establish it. A high dignitary of the church, Cannabich, wrote a book in positive denial of the Trinity, original sin, justification, satisfaction of Christ, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. As for the Trinity, the early Christians had no such tenet, and it was never concocted until after the lapse of several centuries of the Christian era. Both philosophy and nature are as capable of establishing the evidence of God's existence as the Scriptures themselves. The idea we have of God is due to prejudice and education. The mass of the Rationalists said, with Lichtenberg, that instead of God making man after his image, man had made God after his human image.

DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. The Rationalists were fond of reasoning by analogy, and they used that method of argument freely in their discussions on the inspiration of the Scriptures. God never pursues the plan of operating immediately upon nature. His laws are the mediate measures by which he communicates with man. Gravitation is an instrument he employs for the control of the material world. Thus, in some way, does God impress upon man's mind all that he wishes to reveal, without any necessity of direct inspiration. The doctrine was, therefore, rejected because there was no need of it, and from this step it was easy to assume the position that there is no inspiration. This the Rationalists did assume. "Grant inspiration," said they, "and you bind us down to the belief that all the contents of the Scriptures are true. You force us to believe what our reason does not comprehend. The doctrine of inspiration opens the floodgate for the belief of a mass of mythical stuff which we will no more grant to be historically true than Niebuhr will admit the validity of the legends of early Rome." The poets of every land have enjoyed a sort of rhapsody when in their highest flights. This rhapsody or ecstasy is all that these idolaters of reason will concede. Doederlein's views of inspiration were much more elevated than those held by many of his confreres; but he too speaks of poetical excitement, and draws a line of distinction between the inspired and uninspired parts of Scripture. But Ammon represents this subject better than Doederlein. It was his opinion that the idea of a mediate divine instruction is applicable to all human knowledge. He rejects the notion peculiar to revelation. Inspiration cannot for a moment be accepted as an immediate divine impression, because it would compromise the supremacy of reason, and destroy man's intellectual and moral liberty. The diversity of style perceptible in the writers of the Scriptures is a proof that they were not influenced by immediate inspiration. "These writers themselves," say the Rationalists, "never claimed such extraordinary functions as those with which orthodox believers would now clothe them."

Toellner, a theological professor in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, wrote very fully on inspiration, and his work was held in great repute by many of the Rationalists who were inclined to supernaturalism. He held that the will, the matter, the words, and the order of both the matter and the words, might be objects of inspiration. But there are several degrees of inspiration. Some books were written without inspiration of any kind, and were only confirmed by God. In the Old Testament, Moses might have been directed to a choice of subjects, and his memory might have been strengthened. So of the Psalms and Prophecies. There is no such thing as inspiration of the historical books. It cannot be determined what degree was employed in the New Testament. In the Acts there was nothing more than natural inspiration. Luke and Mark were approved by the apostles, hence their writings may be received. Morus held that inspiration was sometimes only the inducing to write; sometimes an admonition to do so; sometimes revelation; and sometimes only a guarding from error.[40] Granting the Rationalistic denial of inspiration, we have no solid ground for any portion of the Bible. We find, therefore, that after this view had become prevalent the popular mind attached no importance to God's revealed will. Interpolations were imagined at every point of difficulty. Schroeckh gives a sketch of the deplorable state of opinion on inspiration, when he says, "Inspiration was given up—interpolations in Scripture were believed to exist. In the oldest and partly in more recent history, instead of historical facts these writers saw only allegories, myth, philosophical principles, and national history. Where appearances of God and the angels, or their immediate agency, are related, nothing was seen but Jewish images or dreams. The explanation of all biblical books was pursued on new principles. The Song of Solomon was not mystical. The Revelations contained no prophecy of the fortunes of the church."

Bitter indeed must have been the emotions of the devout Christian on seeing the departure of inspiration from the opinions of the theological leaders of that day. Infinitely more exquisite must have been his pain than was that of the poet, who, sighing for the haunted and credulous days of olden time, said:

"The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religions, The power, the beauty, and the majesty, That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths: all these have vanished."

CREDIBILITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. Schenkel affirms that Rationalism consists in giving up all the historical characteristics of Christianity and of Christian truths, and in the reduction of religion to the universal conclusions of reason and morality. The accuracy of this definition is very perceptible when we consider the wantonness of the assaults of the Rationalists upon the Scriptures as the canon of faith and practice. This period was marked by desperate attempts to overthrow the early history of all countries, and to convict historians of stating as fact what was only vague tradition. As the Bible was alleged by the supernaturalists to be the oldest historic record, great pains were taken to dissipate the mist from its accounts of supposed verities. The writers of the Scriptures, the friends of Rationalism held, were only men like ourselves. They had our prejudices and as great infirmities as we have. They were as subject to deception and trickery, and as full of political and sectarian rancor as partisans in these times. All through the Old Testament we find traces of biased judgment, Jewish national pride, sectional enmity, sectarian superstition, and rabbinical ignorance. It is but little better in the New Testament, for the disciples of Christ and the writers of the gospels were as susceptible of error and bigotry as their predecessors.[41]

The writers of the Scriptures were utterly destitute of any such great designs as the orthodox attribute to them. They had no intention of writing for posterity, and were the mere chroniclers of what they had heard from others and seen for themselves. The Bible is, like the essays of Seneca, an excellent book for elevating the people by its moral tone. As a revelation of God's will it only takes its place beside others which God had previously made, and has been making in a natural way, ever since.[42] All ages and nations have their communications of knowledge, and the setting forth of any truth in a clearer light is a revelation.[43] There are many steps necessary for the education of the race and for its intellectual and moral development. The Scriptures are a very good aid to such a great consummation.[44] But they are full of errors, which we must leave for the supremacy of pure Reason to dissipate forever.[45]

We cannot forbear to give Wegscheider's testimony on the scanty measure of Scriptural credibility and authority in his own words. "But whatever narrations," he says, "especially accommodated to a certain age and relating miracles and mysteries, are united with the history and subject-matter of revelation of this kind, these ought to be referred to the natural sources and true nature of human knowledge. By how much the more clearly the author of the Christian religion, not without the help of Deity, exhibited to men the ideas of reason imbued with true religion, so as to represent, as it were, a reflection of the divine reason, or the divine spirit, by so much the more diligently ought man to strive to approach as nearly as possible to form that archetype in the mind, and to study to imitate it in life and manners to the utmost of his ability. Behold here the intimate and eternal union and agreement of Christianity with Rationalism.... The various modes of supernatural revelation mentioned in many places of the sacred books, are to be referred altogether to the notions and mythical narrations of every civilized people; and this following the suggestion of the Holy Scripture itself, and therefore to be attributed, as any events in the nature of things, to the laws of nature known to us. As to theophanies, the sight of the infinite Deity is expressly denied: John i. 18—1 John iv. 12—1 Tim. vi. 16. Angelophanies, which the Jews of a later date substituted for the appearances of God himself, like the narrations of the appearances of demons found amongst many nations, are plainly destitute of certain historic proofs; and the names, species, and commissions attributed to angels in the sacred books, plainly betray their Jewish origin. The business transacted by angels on earth is little worthy of such ministers.... The persuasion concerning the truth of that supernatural revelation, which rests on the testimony of the sacred volume of the Old and New Testaments, like every opinion of the kind, labors under what is commonly called a petitio principii."

The Bible is, in fact, of no more authority and entitled to no further credence than any other book. It is not worth more, as an historical record, than an old chronicle of Indian, Greek, or Roman legends.[46] The evangelists did not get their accounts of the doings of Christ from observation, but from a primitive document written in the Aramaic language. The gospels were not intentional deceptions; but that they are as well the work of error as of wisdom, no candid interpreter can deny. The life of Christ which they contain is but an innocent supplement to the Metamorphoses of Ovid.[47] Tittmann went so far as to affirm that the Scripture writers were so ignorant that they could not represent things as they really happened. Of course he excludes their capacity for inspiration.

DOCTRINE OF THE FALL OF MAN. While some Rationalistic writers conceded that Moses was the author of the whole or parts of the Pentateuch, his version of the origin of sin was universally rejected. The temptation by the serpent was, with them, one of the most improbable myths ever drawn up from the earliest traditions of nations. Whether Moses wrote much or little of the books attributed to him, his sources of knowledge were monuments and tales which he saw and heard about him. It is likely that he derived his idea of the fall of man from some hieroglyphic representation which he happened somewhere to see. As for the entrance of the serpent into Paradise, it is just as improbable as the rabbinical notion that the serpent of Eden had many feet. In the opinion of some, the whole narrative is only an allegory, or "a poetical description of the transition of man from a more brutish creature into humanity, from the baby-wagon of instinct into the government of reason, from the guardianship of nature into the condition of freedom."[48] Kindred to this theory is Ammon's; that at first man obeyed instinct only, and that his desire to eat the forbidden fruit was the longing of his mind to understand truth. But the great injury which these men thought they had visited on this doctrine was their assumption that man had not fallen, and that instead of being worse than he once was, he is every year growing purer and holier than at any previous stage of his history. This was flattering to their inflated pride, and their wish became father to their creed. With Eichhorn, the narrative of the fall was only a description of Adam's thoughts.