upport it could
ask from the learned, the powerful, and the ambitious. Here and there
around the horizon could be seen some rising literary star that, for the
hour, excited universal attention. His labor was to impugn the contents
of the Scriptures and insinuate against the moral purity of the writers
themselves. Another candidate for theological glory appeared, and
reproached the style of the inspired record. A third came vauntingly
forward with his geographical discoveries and scientific data, and
reared the accommodation-theory so many more stories higher than Semler
had left it that it almost threatened to fall of its own weight. Strange
that the poetic Muse should lend her inspiration to such unholy
purposes; but in the poetry of that day there was but little of the
Christian element, and he need not be greatly skilled in classic verse
who concludes that the loftiest poetry of Rationalism was as thoroughly
heathen as the dramas of Euripides or Plautus.

Immediately before the appearance of the _Wolfenbuettel Fragments_ by
Lessing, there was the significant lull before the storm. A single
editorial in some religious periodical might decide the fate of
Rationalism. In a few years more it might lie outside the lecture-halls
and renowned churches as thoroughly discarded as a cast-off garment. Or
it might rise to new power and bend all opposition before it. Every one
seemed to be waiting to see what would come next. Would it be the hoarse
thunder and the glare of lightning; or would the clouds be rent and the
clear sky be seen through the widening rifts?

Lessing touched a chord which vibrated throughout the land. While in
charge of the celebrated Library at Wolfenbuettel he met with a
manuscript production of Reimarus, bearing the title of _Vindication of
the Rational Worshipers of God_. It can still be found in the Town
Library of Hamburg. Between 1774 and 1778, Lessing issued seven
_Fragments_ from this work; and the result was, that Germany was
electrified by the boldness and importance of the views there advanced.
They cannot be considered the private opinions of Lessing, for in many
places he appends notes stating his opposition to them. But he heartily
approved the substance of the work, though his object in the publication
of the _Fragments_ was more to feel the public pulse than to instill
theological doctrines into the minds of the people. Reimarus had been a
doubter like many others of his countrymen. He com