the one or the other must exercise authority.
Reinhard avowed himself in favor of the undivided supremacy of faith,
and would have reason subordinate. The key-note of his active life and
inspiring writings is found in his own language--words which, had he
written nothing else, are sufficient to render him memorable. "While yet
a boy," said he, "when I read the Bible I considered it the word of God
to man, and never have I ceased to hold this view; so that now it is so
holy to me and its utterances so decisive that a single sentence which
would reproach its sanctity fills me with horror, just as an immoral
sentiment would rouse my conviction of virtue."

Tittmann entered the lists with a work directed at the very heart of
Rationalism. He charged it with being unimprovable, and merely temporary
and unsatisfactory. His book, entitled _Supernaturalism, Rationalism,
and Atheism_, went still further; for it aimed to show that if the
Rationalists believe what they say, they are nothing less than atheists.
Granting their premises, the conclusion must be that there is no God,
and that if God be not the author of revelation, there is also no God
of nature.

But while this war of books was going on with great bitterness on both
sides, there arose a powerful band of mediators, who believed that no
advantage could be gained for either combatant by continuing the strife,
and that some point of union would have to be adopted before there could
be peace and prosperity. Tzschirner differed from Reinhard in his view
of the antagonism between Rationalism and Supernaturalism. He contended
that there were features of sympathy between the two systems, and that
the work of harmonizing reason and revelation was not impossible. He
therefore attempted, in the present case, what Calixtus had formerly
tried in behalf of the Calvinists and Lutherans. But the syncretism of
Tzschirner was equally difficult of accomplishment. He conceded too much
to the Rationalists: for he would unite them and their enemies on the
ground that the aim of revelation is only to found a moral and religious
institution through the personal agency of a Divine Ambassador; to
strengthen the truths of the religion of reason; and to bring them so
near to the consciences of men that the authority of reason to prove the
origin and contents of revelation cannot be doubted.

But Tzschirner's influence did not consist so much in the particular
plan he would execute as in the tend