ferred to the customs of the first Christian Churches, which were equally set apart from the love of country and all concern with civil affairs. But Theodore replied that the condition of the early Christians was wholly different from that of the Moravians; that their refusal to take part in the events of the world was rendered necessary by the consideration that the governments were unchristian, and even directly hostile to Christianity. But in the other case the refusal was an affectation, growing out of laziness and a want of generous sympathy. John thought this judgment too hard, and remarked that even in our time, it was beneficial to have an example and a living proof of a condition of things raised above all temporal distinctions, purely Christian and human; that thus we should be reminded that we were Christians and men before we were Germans or French. But Theodore considered this also a mistake, and a sickly view, and asserted that our general relationships were based on our particular connexions, and not the reverse.

Notwithstanding, both agreed that the intimate steady union. of the Moravians was worthy of all praise, as well as their spirit of order and harmony. It is ceatain that Theodore carried away a much more favorable impression of the whole. community than he was perhaps himself aware of, in his zeal against the faults he had detected.

CHAPTER 4.

After their return to the University, the two friends pursued with ardor their theological studies, and Theodore followed the counsel of the pastor, and attended the doctrinal lectures of the old professor. He had resolved to hear them through, cost him what it would, in order that he might be free from self-reproach; but he almost broke through this resolution, so great was the dissatisfaction these lectures excited in his mind. This professor was a great combatant and heresy-hunter, and did not even abstain from giving harsh names to his fellow lecturers. This displeased Theodore so much the more, as he saw his zeal was not wholly disinterested. His lectures were more thinly attended than those of his younger associates, and he was unable to conceal his vexation on that account.

In the introduction to his course, he exhibited a detailed and very clear view of the different theological systems, with respect to the sources of religious knowledge which each assumed. One system, (in which Theodore recognized his own,)

in which the reason was recognized as the fountain of religious truth, and the contents of the Bible subjected to its test, he called RATIONALISM, and attacked it very zealously. It is, said he, the doctrine of unbelief and self-deception, for the human reason is dark, and can know nothing of God or of heavenly things, by its own power. Under its guidance one will surely go astray, fall into error and sin and run into the hands of the devil. He not only asserted that the Rationalist despised and rejected Christ and his redemption, but also that he could not believe in God, and that if he was consistent, he must go straight forward into atheism.

Theodore felt himself somewhat impressed, whilst he traced in himself the empty coldness which accompanied the conviction of God's existence won from the mere knowledge of the understanding. But the harshness with which the zealot denounced all use of the reason, except the mere arranging power of the understanding, embittered him; and the other system, which he declared the true orthodox, seemed to him wholly irrational and untenable.

The Professor called this second system SUPERNATURALISM, and to his mind it rested upon the reception of a supernatural revelation which is contained in the Scripture. This revelation he considered an arbitrary extraordinary action of God on the human reason, and as communicating truth to which the unaided reason would never have come. Christ became the Mediator of this revelation, because in him God and man were united in an incomprehensible manner. The Prophets and Apostles had received divine inspiration through the Holy Ghost poured down on them; and he compared this wonderful influence to the playing of a flute, which gives sounds by means of the breath blown into it, but not by its own motion. It is now our business to receive this divine revelation with obedient faith, not to doubt or to speculate concerning it, neither to add any thing to it, or take aught away from it.

Theodore could not but express to John his repugnance to these views. No! cried he-this is too bad, thus to trample upon our reason, which is the creature of God. Revelation might as well be addressed to a stock or a stone, as to a man, if the reason is only the dead instrument with which God works.

John could not deny the extravagance of the Professor, but he thought him only immoderate. It could not be disputed that reason had a power of receiving revelation, which did not belong to a stock or a stone-but, notwithstanding, revelation must be for it the fountain of all higher knowledge.

Theodore did not seem to have gained much by these limita

tions and admissions. The demand was still made that the reason should be passive in its reception of revelation, and abstain from all judgment respecting it. This seemed to be demanding of the reason something opposed to its nature.

John was forced to grant this, since, as a good interpreter he was well aware that in interpreting scripture, it was not sufficient passively to receive the meaning-it was also necessary to exercise actively the judgment in comparing one part with another. But he made a distinction between an active believing reception and a sceptical, dissatisfied questioning. We must, said he, be convinced of the divine truth of scripture as a whole, then we shall be able to examine its parts without falling into unbelief.

Theodore thought that there was an admission made here that we must carry a prejudice with us into our investigations, and considered this unworthy the honest seeker after truth. John was confused, and could carry the argument no further.

Theodore was much disturbed by a lecture of the same professor, in which he asserted that the Rationalist, if he was honest, could not fill the office of Christian preacher. He took the position that Christ had founded his church on a faith in his divine mission, and had sent his apostles to proclaim faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He called himself the way and the life, and had declared that no one could come to the Father but through him. Therefore it was not enough for his minister to preach Christian truth, he must preach it in the name of Christ, as the apostles and their successors had done. Luther had made this faith in Christ the corner stone of the Reformed Church. It was also laid down in the public confessions, and those who neither believed it nor taught it, were false, not only to Christ and his church, but also to the state, which only recognized and protected churches founded on this faith. The Rationalists, said he, may deliver their doctrines from the chair of the lecturer, but they have no more business in the Christian church than Socrates or David Hume.

Theodore had not regarded the matter in thir light. He had felt that his new convictions did not coincide with the faith of those to whom he had to preach, but not that they were wholly inconsistent with the duty of a Christian teacher. He endeavored to reason away the impression which these assertions had made on his mind in conversing about them with John. He quoted the verse where Jesus says-Not every one who says unto me, Lord, Lord! shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in

Heaven. He wished to prove by this passage, that a confession of Christ was not necessary to salvation. But John showed him that Christ required both a confession of his name, and the doing of God's will, and so too with respect to other texts which Theodore produced.

Now our friend has no more peace, and the purpose of giving up the ministerial profession came up afresh in his mind. Landeck had brought him a message from Teresa on his return, and gave him to understand by delicate intimations that his sister took an interest in him, by which Theodore's inclination was excited to new life. Landeck also hinted that his father would willingly help him, if he would enter the service of the state. Theodore heard all with open ear. But he also applied himself, with new zeal, to the study of a religious philosophy, which seemed to offer him a prospect of yet discovering a satisfactory side of theology.

[What follows with respect to Schelling and his doctrines, however instructive for the student of philosophy, has so little apparent interest for our community, that I thought to omit it. But on reflection, I found that this very system was making its way into American Theology, through the medium of Coleridge and his admirers. That the system of Coleridge, as far as he had a system, resembled Schelling's, and was in part taken from it, is as good as granted in the Biographia Literaria, and proved in Tait's Magazine. It may be well for his Calvinistic friends, therefore, to see a little of the system of his master. I do not translate all. T. R.]

A short time before, he had become acquainted with a young man at the university who busied himself with philosophy and belle-lettres, and also devoted himself diligently to painting, but who attended very few lectures. He despised the philosophy of Kant and those who taught it, and preferred the later doctrine of Schelling and the other philosophers of Nature, and read likewise assiduously the writings of the Schlegels and their allies. Theodore was induced by his first meeting with him to seek for a nearer acquaintance with his opinions, and a closer contact with his 'mind. Sebald, for that was his name, spoke much and earnestly, especially when he had attentive listeners; hence, it was easy for Theodore to draw out of him all his thoughts. When he learnt that Theodore was a follower of Kant, he expressed great opposition to those doctrines.

You stand, said he, on the low ground of reflection, it draws a man down, and freezes him, it places all its trust in the understanding, which is not capable of receiving the great life of

nature, or of creating any great, satisfying or inspiring view. Theodore confessed that he had lost his peace of mind through these views, but could find no outlet from them, since their principles seemed too firmly based and arranged.

You can find no outlet, said Sebald, as long as you stay in the low circle of this way of thinking. You must ascend to a higher point of view, and leave the whole matter behind you. As this higher point of view he named intellectual perception without being able to give any very clear account of it.

The conversation turned upon theology, and Sebald expressed great contempt for the teacher in whom Theodore had hitherto placed most confidence. He is a shallow-headed man, said he, who, being fitted out with some knowledge of languages, some psychology, and a few Kantian notions, without any knowledge of antiquity, or the history of religions, lays his destructive hand on the lofty temple of the Christian faith.

This hurt Theodore, and he asked whether then he had heard this man's acute explanations of the gospel miracles, and his view of gospel history.

I know enough of it, replied the other, to cause me to despise it all as the business of a narrow intellect. Who would undertake to explain miracles? Miracles happen every day, and the greatest of all is that a world exists.

You appear, then, said Theodore, to believe in a revelation in Christianity. He then related to him the views of the old professor about supernaturalism, which had displeased him so much.

He, said Sebald, is a shallow head of another sort, who is entangled not merely in notions, but also in words and letters, and looks upon Christianity from the same point of sight of reflection, only from the opposite side. What right has he to oppose revelation to reason? Reason is the original revelation of the divine essence, by means of which we comprehend the eternal image of God in nature and in history.

Theodore shook his head at these expressions, and could not find his way about among them. Sebald advised him to read Schelling, and in particular the "Lectures on Academic Study" -where he would find a much higher view of theology than any he had hitherto met with. Theodore read them, and was much interested in them. What was said there in opposition to the contracted, unbelieving course of the modern interpreters of scripture much disturbed him. He found it but too true, when Schelling compared these theologians to those evil spirits, who, too unbelieving for heaven, and not Godless enough for hell, hang between bliss and damnation But