But the theological faculty, with Semler at its head, ́entered a most violent protest. "Our vocation," the faculty declared, "demands not only that we should prevent the dissemination of directly irreligious opinions, but also that we should watch over the doctrines which are contained in Holy Scripture, and, in conformity with it, in the Augsburg Confession of Faith." Thus spoke a faculty at the head of which Semler stood. Here, that which we have designated above as the one great agent of the life of Bahrdt, reaches its highest point,—that point in which the tragical feature of this life lies. Every where, in Erfurt, in Giessen, in Dürkheim, in Halle, Bahrdt had to yield to the power of the traditional. In Knuzen's age, that would have been a well-merited fate; but at present, even the representatives of the traditional had too much of Bahrdt in them to have been entitled to interfere against Bahrdt. In Erfurt and Giessen, the faith of the Church had been more or less the pretext for personal opposition. Under the Emperor of Illuminism, that sentence of the Imperial Aulic Council could not make any impression upon Bahrdt. And now, to crown the whole, Semler's opposition:

Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?

Bahrdt was fully entitled to write against Semler, whose productions had contributed to destroy in him the last remnant of the faith of the Church: "A man like Semler, the first of the authors of Illuminism in Germany, should have been the last man to have told, in the face of enlightened Zedlitz, the absurdity that he was called to watch over the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession" (Leben, IV. S. 61). Bahrdt, however, delivered lectures on philosophy, philology, ethics, and rhetoric, a

1 Semler's Leben, I. S. 12.

part of which obtained great applause. He was not Islack in his solicitations for offices. Minister Zedlitz writes to him: "The manner in which you torment me, passes all conception. I believe I must rid myself of you by sincerely telling you my mind. For, from the equery up to the professor ordinarius matheseos, or professor of anatomy, scarcely a place can be vacant without your asking it." Even for the sake of his daily bread he was obliged to write. His clear, fluent, insinuating style, fitted him for a popular writer on the side of Illuminism. For all that he had hitherto cleared away in the doctrine of the Church, he had adduced arguments from Scripture, in the belief that the contents of Scripture were divine truth. As yet he considered Christ to be a divine prophet. Then Eberhard, the apologist of Socrates, raised in him the idea that Christ might have learned and composed "His excellent system and doctrines from the writings of the wise men of Greece." And, when once the educationist Trapp, loudly laughing, asked him : 'Aye, aye, the reasonable Bahrdtus still believes in revelation?" "I felt," says Bahrdt, "ashamed; the deathhour of my faith had struck" (Leben, iv. S. 114). It was Semler's critical writings that brought him to the knowledge that Scripture was a purely human book. "I now," he says (Leben, iv. S. 119) "considered revelation as a common and natural event of Providence. I regarded Moses and Jesus just as I did Confucius, Luther, Semler, and myself, as instruments of Providence. I was convinced that these and similar men had drawn from the source of reason only." It was in this sense that he treated the evangelical history in his "Briefe

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1 Briefe, iii. S. 54. On the other hand Bahrdt (Geschichte meiner Gefangenschaft, S. 21), gives to himself the testimony: Soliciting was never my business."

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über die Bibel im Volkstone" (1782) and “Ausführung des Plans und Zweckes Jesu in Briefen" (1784). The evangelical history is in his hands changed into a sentimental novel, in which, at first, the freshness of style, and the bold strokes at history engage the attention, but which, at last, since the same motives ever return, disappears in sand. Bahrdt has thus become a complete disciple of Naturalism; and, so he called himself. "The

basis of all religion," so he declared in his much read book, System der moralischen Religion (1787) is morals." Strange! that a man should offer himself to humanity as a teacher of morality who, in his walk, more and more denied its principles. That defect which, to speak with Semler, was notorious in him, was levity. He had been so often told that, that he was not only obliged to confess it to himself, but could not even well omit mentioning it in his characteristics of himself.

"As levity is with me a disease of which I am, and have been for many years conscious, I am certainly best enabled to describe the disease as to its phenomena and causes, such, at least, as it is in me. My levity is an idiosyncrasy, a quickness of my spirit, which has its foundation in my individual constitution, and in consequence of which I take up the first light in which any object appears to my mind, and continue to consider it in the same light." Even this confession bears witness to his levity. It is closely connected with Bahrdt's natural disposition, that he is anxious to trace back the phenomena of intellectual and spiritual life to physical causes. Just as he derived the pietistic tendency of his friend Pallmann from his (Pallmann's) thick blood (Leben, I. S. 313); so, as regards himself, he finds the cause of his levity in an unhealthy state of his constitution. We need not, therefore, wonder that he was tormented with fatalism. Bahrdt

got older; but his levity increased. His mental energy decreased; bodily suffering came on in addition; and yet the whole strength of a man was required for maintaining his outward position. Thus, he who frequently visited the drinking houses in and around Halle, was struck with the idea of establishing an inn in a vineyard near Halle. This rash project only contributed, of course, to the increase of his levity. His relation to a servant girl who attended to the inn, gave general offence, just as his unhappy wife was the object of general sympathy. The deeper he sank, the bolder were the schemes which he hatched; and wealth and honour were the objects of all of them. It was at the time of Wöllner's religious edict, (see p. 60). Calculating upon the movement called forth by this reactionary attempt in the circles of Illuminism, Bahrdt, an old free-mason (and, as it appears, in connection with the Leipzig bookseller Degenhard Pott) formed the scheme of the so-called German Union (see p. 61), whose aim it was "to carry out the great object of the sublime founder of Christianity, viz. the enlightenment of mankind, and the dethroning of superstition and fanaticism." If we review the plan of this "Union," the documents of which are fully before us, there cannot be any doubt that the whole was a net of speculations and mystifications by Bahrdt; and in this net a great many notable Germans were caught by their blind desire for light. Two pamphlets, expressing the opinions of this propaganda of opposition, appeared: "A Commentary upon the Religious Edict," and "The Religious Edict, a Comedy in five Acts" (1787). The rumours which were spreading about the dangerous tendencies of the German Union, and the strong suspicion that Bahrdt was the author of these pamphlets, caused a judicial inquiry to be made. The proceedings of the Prussian authorities,

especially the sentence of the Kammergericht1 with its sharp, thorough, and, withal, liberal argumentation, make a most beneficial impression, especially when compared with the sentence of the Imperial Aulic Council, formerly mentioned. The sentence of the Kammergericht, which inflicted upon him a two years' imprisonment in a fortress, was mitigated by the king to a twelvemonth's imprisonment. There Bahrdt suffered any thing but want; the state of his health improved. But even here, Bahrdt did not find time for repentance. He returned to Halle altogether unchanged; but his hour was soon to come. He died of a bad disease, which marked his body with its disgusting signs (1792).

In thus more minutely reviewing the life of this man, we do not think that we have lost sight of our intention of picturing that period in outline. In order to understand an age, it is necessary to consider it from one point; and Bahrdt's life which lies before us, so exposed as to all its innermost motives, is, better than any other, fitted for that purpose. While in Bahrdt, Illuminism in its French form appeared on the territory of Theology, a blow, in the direction of the strongest English Theism, was struck in the eighth decade of that century. From 1774 to 1778, Lessing published seven fragments from a larger work, which defended the right of Theism, attacked the Church's doctrine of inspiration, and subjected the biblical history to a bold criticism. It is proven that the author of this work is the Hamburg Professor Samuel Hermann Reimarus, (died 1768), and the manuscript of it, under the title: "Vindication of the rational worshippers of God,"2

The higher judicial court of Prussia.

2 Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes." It is from this manuscript that Dr Klose got the work reprinted in Niedner's Journal for 1850.

K