esis, history, philosophy, and
romance; and these covering a space of many years. Even when you hold up
your treasure, and cry "Eureka!" your shrewd opponent will coolly say
that you have given a false interpretation, and have drawn wrong
conclusions,--that his masters never claimed such an absurdity.
Rationalism looked upon Revelation as a tottering edifice, and set
itself busily at work to destroy the entire superstructure. But
sometimes it is the surrounding vines and trees that shake in the autumn
storm, and not the building itself; and often beneath the worm-eaten
bark there is a great oaken heart, which no arm is strong enough and no
axe sufficiently keen to cleave.

Rationalism has been striving to destroy a house which was built upon a
rock; and if it fell not, the fault lay not in the absence of ingenuity
and strength of attack, but in the undecayed material and
deeply-grounded solidity of the structure.

We are not blind to the extenuating circumstances that are adduced for
Rationalism. The motives of its founders seemed pure enough, for these
men held their life-task to be the purification of faith from the
misconceptions of inspiration, and the deliverance of the church from
the thraldom of stiff formularies. Some of their successors held that
their labors were only philosophical, and hence could not affect
theology. They all claimed relationship with the Reformers, and with the
good and great of all ages. Bretschneider says that Luther talked of
miracles as only fit for the ignorant and vulgar, as apples and pears
are for children.

Paulus tries to prove the great Saxon a Rationalist by the following
circumstance. The Elector of Brandenburg having asked Luther if it were
true that he had said he should not stop unless convinced from
Scripture, received this reply: "Yes, my lord, unless I am convinced by
clear and evident reasons!" It was a favorite view of the Rationalists
that the Reformation had been produced by Reason asserting her rights;
and it was then an easy step to take, when they claimed as much right to
use Reason within the domain of Protestantism as their fathers possessed
when within the pale of Catholicism.

But there were wide points of difference between the Reformers and
Rationalists. The former would return to the spirit and letter of the
Word of God, while the latter did not hesitate to depart from both. The
former accepted the Bible as it is, making Faith its interpreter; the
latte