Excerpt from Religious Thought in Germany: Reprinted by Permission From the Times Century, was a man of superior and varied talents, who, if he had not become an eminent preacher, would have equally excelled as a poet, a scholar, and, perhaps, as a minister of state. In fact, in two of these capa cities he distinguished himself even while devoted to the service of the church, being one of the most elegant philologists and accomplished philosophical and miscellaneous writers of his day. As a clergyman, his searching mind, combined with a deep and devout religious sentiment, made him the founder of a new school of divines. Yearning for some indissoluble tie to bind him to the invisible world, still too deeply imbued with the sceptical lore of his country to accept the literal inspiration of Holy Writ, he endeavoured to effect a compromise bet-ween the two as yet irrecon cileable extremes of rationalism and belief. In this, it is true, he only did what so many attempted before, and indeed simultaneously with, him. If he, never theless, acquired a loftier position than any of his like - minded cotemporaries, he was indebted for it not only to his immense talent, which would have com manded attention under any circumstances, but also to his differing from other leading ecclesiastics in one particular and most important trait of his intellectual. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.