They rejected the personality of God, a future life,
and the credibility of the Gospel narratives.

Strauss was a Left Hegelian, and his _Life of Jesus_ became the creed of
his brethren in doubt. He was not in perfect harmony with all their
extremes, but he co-operated with them, and gave them their chief glory.

The world has seldom seen a literary venture more remarkable in contents
or in history than this meteor across the firmament of German theology.
To say that it was unexpected is but a faint expression of the universal
surprise occasioned by it. The Left Hegelians were a limited school and
the current of theological thought had been against them. Therefore,
when the _Life of Jesus_ appeared, it was a bold thrust from an arm
thought to possess but little strength. The author, David Frederic
Strauss, was a young lecturer on theology in the University of Tuebingen.
He had experienced the several shades of opinion prevalent during his
student life. Beginning with the Romantic School, lingering awhile with
Schleiermacher, and finally passing through the gate Beautiful of
Hegel's system, he tarried with that master as "lord of the hill." His
stay was not brief, like that of Bunyan's pilgrim. But satisfied only by
making greater progress, the philosophy of the great thinker became his
Delectable Mountains, "beautiful with woods, vineyards, fruits of all
sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to
behold."

Strauss was but twenty-eight years old when his cold, passionless, and
pungent piece of skeptical mechanism was presented to the world. Who
would suspect that quiet young man of possessing so much power over the
minds of his countrymen? M. Quinet, speaking of a visit to him, said,
"Beneath this mask of fatalism I find in him a young man full of
candor, of sweetness and modesty; of a spirit almost mystical, and
apparently saddened by the disturbance which he had occasioned." His
book produced a universal impression in Europe. It was, to the moral
sentiment of Christendom, the earthquake shock of the nineteenth
century. Having been multiplied in cheap editions, it was read by
students in every university and gymnasium, by passengers on the Rhine
boats and in the mountain stages, and by a great number of private
families. Even school children, imitating the example of their seniors,
spent their leisure hours in its perusal. The most obscure provincial
papers contained copious extracts from it,