in the unconscious innocence
of nature; then the patriarchal era with its simple, uniform manners
along with its untamed passion; and then again the most active
intercourse of nations, the most savage wars, the hierarchical state
and the elective and hereditary monarchy. It gives us lofty poetry in
the Psalms, the grandest didactic poem in the Book of Job, and a
collection of proverbs, the fruit of the ripest experience and
knowledge of life. It makes us acquainted with idolatry in its most
fearful degeneracy, and then, with the adoration of _one_ God and the
conflict, rising to the highest pitch of heroism, against this
degeneracy. But this God is a mere national God, to be known only
within the confined limits of the Jewish state, living personally only
here, in and with the people. We see the consequences of this
contracted view: hate instead of love, stubbornness instead of
docility, stagnation instead of progress. With this first period the
books of the Old Testament close.

Is it possible to understand the Gospel, which now follows, in its
grandeur, truth, purity and love, without a knowledge of the age, which
preceded it? or the prejudices, against which, He, who revealed it, had
to contend? We find varying opinions among those who wrote it--the
stamp of diverse authorship; here Judaistic narrowness, there freer
elevation, homely simplicity, and again deep glow and feeling. We even
find contradictions, historical and chronological, and yet, what unity
in all that is essential--what agreement in all that contributes to
peace in life and comfort in the hour of death; in all that determines
our actions and confers worth upon them! Are there any other writings,
for whose investigation, for whose explanation, so much sagacity, so
much science, so much conscientiousness are demanded? Such are the
questions, which very naturally crowd upon us, when we once more survey
the man, in whom all these qualifications are joined, as he goes forth
to battle with a multitude of others, who possess them only partially
and hence dangerously.

And thus we return again to those disturbers, before alluded to, in the
bosom of the Reformed party, who assailed Zwingli more boldly than any
monk, and whose scientific culture, adroitness, and, in the end,
desperation, prepared for him a far more violent conflict. Conrad
Grebel has already been represented to us as morally and physically
depraved. The higher spirit, which once attracted Zw