f prayer to its psychological
effects, shall have greater force to leaven the whole daily life
religiously, than our Christian faith in the Father without whose will no
sparrow falls to the ground, and who says to his children: "Call upon me in
the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."
Third--exactly that which Lang declares a purification of religion (namely,
the before-mentioned elimination of divine providence and of all that which
is connected therewith), appears to us not at all as a reform, but as an
immense impoverishment and desolation of religion, which is so far from
being required by natural science, that it turns out to be but a concession
to the most superficial metaphysicians who, of course, have become very
popular. {213}

Friedrich Vischer is also to be ranked in this group. In the sixth part of
his "Kritische Gaenge" ("Critical Walks"), he speaks of Strauss' "The Old
Faith and the New," and takes his determined position in reference to the
religious question, quite essentially differing from Strauss. In regard to
the aversion to miracles, he stands on the same ground with Strauss and
Lang; in protesting against Strauss' elimination of the idea of design, and
especially in demanding a moral order of the world, he is still more
energetic than Lang. He particularly does not, like Lang, limit the moral
order of the world to the simple empiric causal connection between human
action and its consequences. But on the other hand, by his opposition to
the idea of a personality of God, he again deviates more than Lang from the
true meaning of Christian religiousness. On page 219 he says: "How, in
spite of the infinite crossings of human action, is inner conformity to the
end in view in general so established through that which we call chance, or
rather by means of these crossings, that we can speak of a moral order of
the world? Men, individuals as well as communities, follow their aims.
Hereby there always results something quite different from that which they
intended and wished. Sublime laws govern above us, between us, full of
mystery in the midst of life; one of them in reference to guilt, punishment
of guilt, is called nemesis. Faith in that meaning of the word, which we
regard as a low one [he means the faith which has its dogmas beyond which
the man of the most recent culture has passed, not knowing that he also
carries around with him his dogmas, his "new faith"] is in need of a p