s
to say that Schenkel makes a poor case for himself. His book stands
against him. The miracles of Christ receive his severe comment. They
are, in his opinion, the dark shade which has been cast upon the bright
splendor of the public activity of Jesus. It was a matter of course that
the idea of a life like that of the Redeemer should, soon after his
death, be veiled by a multitude of tales. His disciples endeavored to
represent his internal wonderful power of personal glory and greatness
by the external miraculous occurrences which they ascribed to him. Their
deeply excited imagination magnified the great hero whom they had loved
and admired. Their enthusiastic religious fancy did him homage by
ascribing to him the performance of miracles. The gift of working
miracles was merely the endowment of nature. For Jesus was favored with
the highest ability and rarest moral power, by which he worked
beneficially upon sufferers and took them by surprise. Schenkel further
rejects and denies the faith in Christ's personal and bodily
resurrection from the dead, and his continuation of life in the glory of
the Father. But he holds that Christ lives in his community, in which
are his home and temple. The living Christ is the spirit of his
community.

After the position of Schenkel's work had been fairly decided, numerous
remonstrances appeared against it from the orthodox theologians. One
hundred and eighteen clergymen sent in a formal protest to the
consistory for his removal from his important office as director of the
seminary. But the ecclesiastical council decided in favor of his
continuance in discharge of his functions. They extenuated themselves by
saying that the free examination of the Scriptures is the privilege of
Protestant Christians. The Rationalists claim the result as one of the
most signal of their recent victories.

Hengstenberg, the strongest and most heroic of the later opponents of
Rationalism, commenced very early in life as both author and professor.
It is now more than thirty years since he was elected professor of Old
Testament exegesis at Berlin. He was chosen to that important position
with a view to counteract the prevailing Rationalism, and, if possible,
to raise up a new school of earnest evangelical men. He has not been
without success. Having never swerved from his first avowed position,
his antipathy to all kinds of skepticism is so sincere and active that
he combats it without any regard to modera