frequently-repeated victory, a powerful mental process which appeared
sometimes, indeed, wonderful to himself, but in which with his sound,
strong nature, there was nothing morbid, and of which the special form,
the struggles with the devil, were the natural consequences of the
_naive_, simple-hearted popular faith, which had changed the old
household spirits and hobgoblins of our heathen ancestors into
Christian angels and the devil. The Pietists, on the other hand, lived
in a time when the life both of nature and man was more rationally
viewed as to cause and effect, when a multitude of scientific
conceptions were popular, when a practical worldly mind prevailed which
made itself few illusions; and when the hearts of men were seldom
elevated by enthusiasm and great ideas. Already we begin to trace the
beginnings of rationalism. In such a time this regeneration, this
moment of awakening, was not a frame of mind easily produced--not a
condition in which, with a sound mental constitution, one could place
oneself without a certain degree of violence. It was necessary to wait
for it--to prepare oneself strenuously, and constrain body and soul to
it, by a self-contemplation, in which there was something unsound; one
must watch anxiously one's own soul, to discover when the moment of
awakening was nigh. And this moment of awakening itself was to be
entirely different from every other frame of mind. In order to arrive
at the conviction of its presence, that was not sufficient for them,
which, after severe struggles, had given a happiness to the great
reformers that rested on their countenances like a reflection of the
Godhead; the peace and serenity which come after the victorious end of
a struggle betwixt duty and inclination. This outpouring of grace with
the Pietists was frequently accompanied by ecstasies, visions, and
similar pathological phenomena, which at no period have been wanting,
but which were then sought after as the highest moments of human life
and recounted with admiration. It will shortly be shown that this was
the rock on which Pietism struck.

With such tendencies, even the reading of the Scriptures was fraught
with special danger. When they explained the holy Scriptures, being
under the conviction that God favoured them with a direct influence,
they were in the unfortunate position of considering every accidental
incident that presented itself to them in any part, as an unerring
manifestation. Now, the ye