that these two sets were quite
divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals before them.

I had been at a German university, and the historical study of
Christianity was to me as familiar as the study of Roman history.
Professors whom I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly to
be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig, Schelling and
Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing in me a certain surprise at
first, left me with the firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
were historical books, and to be treated according to the same
critical principles as any other ancient book, particularly the sacred
books of the East of which so little was then known, and of which I
too knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see that they
contained nothing but what under the circumstances they could
contain, traditions of extreme antiquity collected by men who gathered
all they thought would be useful for the education of the people.
Anything like revelation in the old sense of the word, a belief that
these books had been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that what
seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted as historically real,
simply because it was recorded in these sacred books, was to me a
standpoint long left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
thoughts were to what date these books, such as we have them, could be
assigned, what portions of them were of importance to us, what were
the simple truths they contained, and what had been added to them by
later collectors. Well do I remember when, before going to Oxford, I
spoke to Bunsen of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the
expression, "the great revelations of the world," he, perfectly
understanding what I meant, warned me in his loud and warm voice,
"Don't say that at Oxford." I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either,
nor his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman of the Church of
England; but I was told that I should be misunderstood. I knew far too
little to imagine that I had a right to speak of what was fermenting
and growing within me. During my stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and
afterwards in my intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles of
the historical school had become quite familiar to me, but the
application of these principles to the early history of religion was
a different matter. How far the Old and the New Testament would stand
the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a frequent subject of
controversy, d