Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 697

Chap. V]

THE PERIOD OF RESURRECTION

§ 106.

673

be said that this is owing, first of all, to the many myswhich, against all expectation, have restored influences, tical breath of to the religious waters. current a once more

let it

A

wind from above has gone out upon the nations. By the woes of the French Revolution and Napoleon's tyrannies the nations were prepared for a new departure in an ideal direction.

revealed

The power itself

of

palingenesis has almost suddenly

with rare force.

By

the very radicalism of

the revolutionary theory the sense of a twofold life, of a twofold effort, and of a twofold world-view has come to a clearer

Moreover, it may not consciousness in every department. escape our notice, that it has pleased God, in almost every land and in every part of the Church, to raise up gifted per-

who, by

sons,

Him

"transferred from death into

life,"

as

singers, as prophets, as statesmen, as jurists, and as theoloo-ians, have borne a witness for Christ such as has not been

heard of since the days of Luther and Calvin. It would, however, be a great mistake to explain the resurIt rection of theology from this powerful revival alone. be overlooked that this mystical-pietistical revival was more than indifferent to theology as such. As far as it called into life preparatory schools for ministers and mission-

may not

aries, this revival

lacked

all

theological consciousness,

and

more than a certain ecclesiastical training for a sort of discipline more bent upon advancing its students a spirit of piety and developing a power of public address, than upon theological scholarship. It was more the " passion undertook

little ;

of the Soul,"

ment,

and the desire after religious

that inspired general activity,

quietistic enjoy-

than the purpose, cher-

ished even from afar, to give battle in the domain of thought, or to maintain the honor of Christ in the intellectual world.

The

life of

the heart, or emotions, and the

life of clear conscious-

upon more and more as separate and distinct, and religious activity, which found itself strong within the domain of the emotions, but very weak on intellectual ground, deemed it good tactics to withdraw its powers within If the domain within which it felt itself to be invincible. Christianity of vocation the itself, left to been had reveil this

ness were looked

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