ge declare plainly enough the
pains he took to put in force the incantation he had pronounced to all
skeptical sprites,

"Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle; ye that mingle may."

No Rationalist escaped his notice. The English Naturalists reappeared
with all their original pretensions. Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Lessing,
Kant, De Maistre, and all the representatives of skeptical thought
communed in friendly society, regardless alike of disparity in
particular opinions and of difference in the time when they flourished.
On this very account M. Quinet infers the great popularity of the
enterprise. Because it was a grouping of all heterodox doctrines of the
person of Christ, the adherents of Rationalism saw whither their
principles were leading them, and their opponents learned more of the
desperate character of their foe than they had ever acquired from all
other sources. It was a crystallization of the imputations and insults
cast upon the gospels for more than seventy-five years. Then, for the
first time, did the votaries of error, mass themselves. It was then,
too, that the evangelical school were first able to count the number of
their opponents.

The scene before the publication of the _Life of Jesus_ was quite
different from the one presented subsequently. Formerly the Rationalists
said what they chose about Christ, and they suffered little from their
rashness. But immediately after Strauss had issued his book, the
attention of the church was profoundly attracted toward the
consideration of the themes therein treated. The church seemed to say,
"Strange, that I have given so little attention to this great pillar of
Christian faith; now I see what reward I am receiving for my neglect.
The like shall never happen again. No, I will not only quench this
firebrand, but I will hurl back upon my enemies enough destructive
missiles to reduce them to a disorganized band of homeless fugitives."
This resolution was not the work of idle excitement, and soon to be
forgotten. The replies to the _Life of Jesus_ constitute a theological
literature. They were very numerous, and written from as many points of
view as there had been theological schools since the dawn of the
Reformation. The first rejoinder came from the most distinguished
theologian of Wuertemberg, Steudel of Tuebingen. He was superintendent of
the very school where Strauss was tutor, and his work was written but a
few weeks