ology. Something positive was what they
wanted; hence the great service of Schleiermacher in directing them to
Christianity as the great sun in the heavens, and then to the heart as
the organ able to behold the light. His labor was inestimably valuable.
His utterances were full of the enthusiasm of youth, and, years later,
he became so dissatisfied with the work, that he said it had grown
strange even to himself. As if over-careful of his reputation, to a
subsequent edition he appended large explanatory notes in order to
harmonize his recent with his former views. It would have been more
becoming the mature man to leave those earnest appeals to reap their own
reward. The times had changed; and the necessity which had first called
forth his appeal to the idolaters of doubt was sufficient apology.
Schleiermacher wrote other works, of which he and his disciples were
much prouder; but we doubt if he ever issued one more befitting the
class addressed, or followed with more beneficial results. Since his
pen has been stopped by death, those very discourses have led many a
skeptic in from the cold storm which beat about him, and given him a
place at the warm, cheerful fireside of Christian faith. Severe censure
has been cast upon them because of their traces of Spinoza. It is enough
to reply that their author, in the fourth edition, repudiated every word
savoring of Pantheism. Of books, as of men, it is best to form an
estimate according to the purpose creating them, and the moral results
following them. Neander, who could well observe the influence of the
_Discourses_, gives his testimony in the following language: "Those who
at that time belonged to the rising generation will remember with what
power this book influenced the minds of the young, being written in all
the vigor of youthful enthusiasm, and bearing witness to the neglected,
undeniable religious element in human nature. That which constitutes the
peculiar characteristic of religion, namely, that it is an independent
element in human nature, had fallen into oblivion by a one-sided
rational or speculative tendency, or a one-sided disposition to absorb
it in ethics. Schleiermacher had touched a note which, especially in the
minds of youth, was sure to send forth its melody over the land. Men
were led back into the depth of their heart, to perceive here a divine
drawing which, when once called forth, might lead them beyond that which
the author of this impulse had expres