with himself springing up around him-Neander, Twesten, Nitsch, and others. As a preacher his influence extended still more widely, if not more powerfully. His sermons were among the most active causes of the noble patriotic excitement that stirred Berlin in the year 1813, and which diffused throughout Germany did more than anything else to bring about the downfall of Napoleon and the liberation of the fatherland.

His preaching, according to all testimony, must have been very remarkable in its character and influence. William von Humboldt says that it showed far greater powers than his writings. Those who may have read his writings ever so diligently, but who never heard him speak, can have, according to this writer, but a very inadequate conception of the rare and impressive qualities of his oratory. His strength lay in the deeply penetrative character of his words. It would be wrong to call it rhetoric, for it was so entirely free from art. It was the persuasive, penetrating, kindling effusion of a feeling which seemed not so much to be enlightened by one of the rarest intellects, as to move side by side with it in perfect unison.' His sermons occupy four closely-printed octavo volumes, and they are on all sorts of subjects; some of the most striking and attractive of them on the family relations and duties. Like most other German sermons, they want the pith, variety, and ease of expression which form in this country elements of popular oratory; but they are highly eloquent and didactic, moving in sentiment, rich in broad-lying veins of thought, and suffused by a vague tenderness of feelings.

His mode of preparation, especially in connexion with the full and elaborate character of most of the sermons, is remarkable. He wrote nothing beforehand, except a heading or subject, and the divisions in which he proposed to treat it.

This he called writing his slip, and thus prepared he entered the pulpit. Here the sermon took a definite form, the mode

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of representation and the detailed execution being the living product not only of his preceding reflection, but also of the animating impression produced by the assembled congregation, and of the neverfailing powers of his mind over the order of his thoughts, and his equally unfailing command of language. Those who knew the secret could follow the growth of the artistic structure of his discourse. They perceived how at first he spoke slowly and deliberately, somewhat in the ordinary tone of conversation, as if gathering and marshalling his thoughts; then, after a while, when he had, as it were, spread out and again drawn together the entire net of his thoughts, his words flowed faster, the discourse became more animated, and the nearer he drew towards the encouraging or admonishing peroration, the fuller and the richer flowed the strain. He was ever the same, and always equally attractive by the original manner in which he treated his text, by the novelty and freshness of his thoughts, by the order and clearness of his mode of representation, and the fluency of his delivery. When your attention was not too much occupied with the thoughts, you might often have an opportunity of admiring how, though giving way to that liking for complicated periods which rendered his style so peculiar, he, even in the midst of the most complicated, ever found the most appropriate term, and never lost the clue which led him with certainty to the conclusion. He had modes of expression peculiar to himself, and also a sphere of thought peculiar to himself. But the richness of his mind and the fulness of Christian life in him, never allowed any of the ordinary defects of extemporary preaching to be apparent in his sermons, and caused one to contemplate with unalloyed pleasure his wonderful mastery of the homiletic art, and the rich fruits it bore.

Such is the description of Lücke. One reads it with amazement when we think of the highly intellectual and thoughtful audience which Schleiermacher addressed, and the general character of his sermons. The description of Henrietta Herz is still more astonishing. According to her, a quarter of an hour's quiet meditation amidst a crowded drawing-room on a Saturday evening was frequently all his preparation. He was fond of society, and, by her account,

Seldom refused an invitation; he also

saw a great deal of company at his own house, and when it happened that he had to preach the next day, and his drawingroom was full of company, he would draw aside for about a quarter of an hour, taking up his stand close to the stove, and looking thoughtfully before him. His more intimate friends knew that at such moments he was reflecting on his sermon, and took care that he should not be disturbed. In a short while he was again a lively participator in the conversation going on; but in the interval he had jotted down a few notes with pencil on a slip of paper, and this was all that was ever written of his sermons before they were preached; yet I have frequently heard him the next morning, after a preparation seemingly so insufficient, deliver the most deeply affecting and deeply felt discourse.

The chief works published by Schleiermacher during this highest period of his professional and pastoral activity, were his Outlines of Theological Study, and his Christian Faith according to the Principles of the Evangelical Church (Der Christliche Glaube nach der Grandsätzen der Evangelichen Kirche). The former and earlier work is a brief and highly condensed account of the whole arrangement and principles. of theological science as he understood it; the other may be said to form the Institutes of the science according to his notion. Lücke has compared it in historical importance to the Institutes of Calvin. Together, these works fully represent Schleiermacher's position as a theologian, and expound the meaning and application of the principles which he considered vital and fundamental in all Christian science. We shall briefly recur to these principles as we close.

Schleiermacher continued his labours with unremitting zeal to the last. His active spirit knew no rest, and no outward anxieties oppressed him, profoundly happy as he was in the bosom of his family. In the summer of 1833, he took a tour through Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, with his friend Count Schwerin. He was received with welcome and honour wherever he went; in Copenhagen particularly his presence excited great enthu

siasm among the professors and students, and he was entertained at a public banquet, terminating in a torch procession, the unfailing sequel of all German and Scandinavian ovations. He appears to have been well and hearty during this tour, and yet not without some presentiment that it would be the last he would undertake, 'with the exception of the long one' awaiting him and all. In the end of the year he writes to his step-son, I see that mother has already made out a clean bill of health for me; and, thank God, I can fully confirm it. During the four weeks that I have been at home I have tried myself in various ways, and have borne all very well.' Later still, on the 30th of January of the following year, he writes in great spirits, also to his son, with the hint, however, in the close of his letter, that he had been suffering from cough and hoarseness for the last three days.' Thirteen days from this date he had breathed his last. His cough and hoarseness had developed into inflammation of the lungs, under which he rapidly sunk. On the last morning, when his 'features had assumed the character of death, and the death film was spreading over his eyes,' he partook of the communion, saying, as he placed his two fingers on his eye, according to his habit when he was reflecting deeply, 'I have never clung to the dead letter, and we have the atoning death of Jesus Christ, his body and his blood.' As he spoke, a light of heavenly rapture shone in his face, and a look of beaming love fell on all around him. He sunk back on his pillow, then asked to be turned round, and expired.

Schleiermacher's character is not one readily intelligible to the British mind. It is too manifold and complex. The lights lie intermixed with shadows; reverence is combined with lightness, and a daring scepticism with a deep-seated and ardent faith. He is the man of the world, the sentimentalist, the littérateur, and

at the same time the preacher, the teacher, and the theologian. The combination seems a puzzling and contradictory one. Especially is the free and fearless manner in which Schleiermacher both thought and acted in regard to moral questions, such as marriage, apt to startle and alarm our sympathies. The contradictions, however, are only on the surface they vanish on a deeper view, and Schleiermacher's character is seen to be perfectly harmonious, whether or not it be truly great. A profound depth of sympathy, and a believing and loving earnestness, whose very strength made it despise conventions, lie at its root. A more sympathetic, generous, or tender nature it would be difficult to conceive; and should some say that he was guided more by sensibility than by principle, a closer and more comprehensive inspection of his conduct will show that this was not the case. A conscience-stricken boy when he entered the Moravian establishment at Nięsky, he never lost the spiritual sensitiveness and divine aspirations which then moved him. He changed his point of contemplation, but he carried the same reverent and pious instincts, the same affectionate and yearning religiousness, into the broader and more historical views which he ultimately adopted. His sensitiveness and tenderness of feeling might degenerate into weakness and sentimentalism. His breadth and freedom of sympathy sometimes led him astray; as in his mistaken defence of Schlegel's Lucinda. But even in the case of Schlegel it was his judgment rather than his moral instinct that erred. fancied from all he knew, and at the time strongly appreciated in his friend, that he could read a high and spiritual meaning in his too warmly coloured imaginations, and with this conviction it appeared only a natural impulse of fraternal chivalry to come forward to his defence. At any time, the misunderstandings and disfavour that were likely to attend the discharge of a duty, rather re

He

commended it to Schleiermacher than helped to dissuade him from it. He had certainly the magnanimous simplicity of a great character. If he felt conscious of rectitude, the opinion of others scarcely ever seemed to disturb him. He writes to his betrothed just before their marriage :

Be not uneasy, dear Jette, about the opinions entertained of me by people in general. To me this is nothing new, and is not of the slightest importance. It cannot be otherwise than that a great many persons must misunderstand me, that some must dislike me, and that to others I must be a thorn in the flesh; to alter this, it would be necessary that my inmost being should alter, and surely you would not have this.

In calm resoluteness of purpose Schleiermacher might be compared to Calvin, startling as the comparison may seem to some. It is the only personal trait perhaps in which they could be made to resemble one another. Equally strong in their respective opinions, and drawing from their

rare

strength of conviction a certain composure and rest of spirit amid all the incessant activity of their lives, this trait in each yet took the most opposite manifestations. In the one it bred intolerance and love of power, a vehement desire that others should conform to the same standard of judgment. In the other the very fulness of his own individuality, and his determination to give it scope, made him recognise the rights of individuality in others, and not only concede to them equal room for development, but take pleasure in their developments, however opposite to his own. Puritanism was the natural expression of the spirit of the one; latitudinarianism is the natural expression of the spirit of the other. The course of thought has widened marvellously in the interval between the two. In the sixteenth century men sought the truth as a dogmatic authority of universal application. Schleiermacher was content to seek it as a 'light shining in a dark place,' and which, according to our relative position in the darkness, may