o tremble for their lives. The people were profoundly disgusted
with a skepticism which could produce no better fruits than this one had
matured. The indignation was even more intense than that toward French
infidelity during the supremacy of Napoleon over the German States. In
the latter case the people were disgusted with the efforts of foreign
skepticism, but in the former, they saw and felt the sore evils of
domestic Rationalism. Religious error had led them from peace and quiet
into a dream-land. When the waking moment came, and the deception became
apparent, the surprise at the delusion was overwhelming.

The doctrinal form of Rationalism had been arrested by Schleiermacher
and his noble band of followers. Its exegetical prestige had been
destroyed by the replies to the _Life of Jesus_. And, as if to make its
defeat as humiliating as possible, the last blow was self-inflicted. It
was the Revolution of 1848, and its consequent failure, which
annihilated the political strength of German Rationalism. There is a God
in history. And though one generation may fail to perceive the
brightness of his presence, the following one may be favored with the
vision. No skeptic should forget that the real philosophy of history is
the march of Providence through the ages. But the infidel is the worst
reader of history. The light shines, but he turns away from it. Or, as
Coleridge expresses it:

"The owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscure wings across the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close;
And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,
Cries out, 'Where is it?'"

There is a deep principle underlying not only the miscarriage of the
Revolution of 1848, but of all the popular movements toward independence
which occur at a time when the people are involved in religious doubt.
It is the spiritual status of a nation which commonly determines its
love of law and order. A population adhering to an evangelical
interpretation of the Scriptures can be forced to revolution only by
evil and ambitious leaders, or by persistent oppression on the part of
their rulers. The tardy movement of the American Colonies toward their
revolt against the British Government betrayed a great unwillingness to
inaugurate the struggle. At the beginning, the conflict was not designed
to be a revolution but only a judicious expedient for the improvement of
the colonial laws.[68] Wise rulers, governing for the be