ument which was used in the former of these crises is seen in the
Alexandrian school of the fathers in the third century, and that used in
the latter, in the school of Schleiermacher. The study of the life and
mental development of Schleiermacher's disciple, Neander, would be in this
view one of the most valuable in history.(1032) He was himself led by the
mercy and providence of God to the knowledge of Christ; his own spirit was
rescued from doubts such as we describe; his life was spent in trying to
save others from the like difficulties, and to plant their feet upon the
rock upon which he himself stood: and it is only the secrets of the great
day that will declare the number of the souls that were led by his
teaching to find Christ and salvation.

In both these periods the method adopted for recommending Christianity
was, to carry out the plan used by St. Paul at Athens,(1033) to lay a
basis for the proof of it by developing the moral and philosophical
argument.

In the Alexandrian period the method used was, to show that all former
religions, all former philosophies, were not unmixed error, but contained
the germ of truth, which Christianity gathered into itself; to exhibit
Christianity as the fulfilment in the field of history of the world's
yearnings, and thus to awaken the response of the heart to the narrative
of its message.(1034) Reasons, to which allusion has before been
made,(1035) may have lessened the utility at that period of the positive
evidence, which proves the fact that a Redeemer had been given; but we
cannot doubt that, independently of this circumstance, a deep
philosophical reason suggested the stress which was laid on the moral
argument, on account of its suitability for convincing the opponent;--a
reason indeed to which the history of some of the fathers gave a personal
force in the fact that it was by this manner that they had themselves been
led to accept of Christianity.(1036)

In the German period the same method has been adopted, with the
corresponding alterations suggested by modern philosophy. Not to mention
the instructive attempts of the school of Kant to find a philosophy from
the subjective side of religion, in the denial of its possibility if
attempted on the objective, and to exhibit the limitations of the human
mind in speculating on the subject of religious method; nor again to
mention the bold attempt of Hegel, to which we have previously taken
exception as opposing the simpli