he family,--to which we owe our training during the
first half of the last century.

And if we, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who lived
when Goethe and Schiller grew up, smile at the constraint of the
feelings which appears in the wooings and betrothals of 1750; at the
want of genuine tenderness, in spite of the general yearning for tender
and pathetic feelings; and at the incapacity to give full expression in
language and demeanour to the most exquisite of passions, we must
remember, that just then the nation stood at the portals of a new time
which was to change this poverty into wealth. The reign of Pietism had
introduced a mild sentimentality into the nation; the philosophy of
mathematics had spread over language and life a calm brightness, and
the following fifty years of intense political activity and powerful
productiveness in every realm of science were to bring the nation a
richer development of the mental life. After this took place, the
German was so far fortified by the good spirit of his home, that, even
after the most horrible devastation and destruction, his soul was
strengthened, through the interests of private life, for greater tasks
and more manly labours. After Spener, Wolf, and Goethe came the
volunteers of 1813.

But here we will verify what has been said of the condition, character,
and wooing of Germans about the year 1750 by the record of a
contemporary. He who speaks has already been mentioned several times in
the preceding pages; he is one of whom science will ever preserve a
kindly remembrance. Johann Salomo Semler, Professor of Theology at
Halle, who lived from 1725 to 1791, was one of the first who broke
loose from the orthodox faith of the Protestant Church; and, following
their own investigations, ventured, with the help of the scientific
culture of the period, to form a judgment on the origin and changes of
the church dogmas. His youth was passed in struggle with Pietism, but
at the same time, under its dominion, his warm heart clung, as long as
it continued to beat, like Luther and the Pietists, to the child-like
relation to his God and Father; but, as a scholar, this same man who,
in respect to the daily occurrences of life, was so often yielding,
uncertain, and dependent on those around him, became bold, decided, and
sometimes radical. With him began the criticism of holy traditions; he
was the first who ventured to handle systematically the historical
developme