l. He was warmly
devoted to the spread of practical truth and a correct understanding of
the Bible. Kahnis says of him: "We might indeed call conscientiousness
the fundamental virtue of Bengel. Whatever he utters, be it in science,
or life, is more mature, more well-weighed, more pithy, more consecrated
than most of what his verbose age has uttered. In the great he saw the
little, in the little the great." In the present century the church has
had recourse to Pietism as its only relief from a devastating
Rationalism. Not the Pietism of Spener and Francke, we acknowledge, but
the same general current belonging to both. Its organ was the
_Evangelical Church Gazette_, in 1827, and among the celebrities who
attached themselves to it we find the names of Heinroth, von Meyer,
Schubert, von Raumer, Steffens, Schnorr, and Olivier.

Pietism lacked a homogeneous race of teachers. Here lay the secret of
its overthrow. Had the founders been succeeded by men of much the same
spirit, and equally strong intellect, its existence would have been
guaranteed, as far as anything religious can be promised in a country
where there is a state church to control the individual conscience. The
great mistake of Lutheranism was in failing to adopt it as its child.
The skeptical germ which soon afterwards took root, gave evidence that
it could prove its overthrow for a time, at least; but the evils of
Rationalism were partially anticipated by the practical teachings of the
Pietists. Rationalism in Germany, without Pietism as its forerunner,
would have been fatal for centuries. But the relation of these
tendencies, so plainly seen in the ecclesiastical history of Germany, is
one of long standing. From the days of Neo-Platonism to the present they
have existed, the good to balance the evil, Faith to limit Reason. They
have been called by different names; but Christianity could little
afford to do without it or its equivalent, in the past; and the Church
of the Future will still cling as tenaciously and fondly to it or to its
representative.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Auberlen: _Die Goettliche Offenbarung_, vol. I., pp. 278-281. The
second volume of this important work has been completed, but the gifted
author has just died. His book must therefore take its place in the
catalogue of brilliant but hopeless fragments.

[25] Watson, _Theolog. Dict._ Art. _Protestant Pietists_.

[26] Schmid, _Geschichte des Pietismus_, pp. 290-293. How greatly this
movemen