Memoirs of Frederick Perthes, Or, Literary, Religious, and Political Life in Germany, from 1789 to 1843 Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ...when he represents nature itself, corrupted with and through man, as groaning and travailing together in pain, and waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God." However much irritated Ferthes sometimes was by vague generalities about the goodness of nature, and the progress of mankind to perfection, he was yet able to estimate justly even the Rationalists, whose views were most opposed to his own. He thus wrote: " Were I to consider the champions of Rationalism apart from their antecedents, I should certainly view them with reprobation; but how few men have made themselves what they are With few exceptions, the inward man, like the outward position, is determined by circumstances; and I myself can remember the circumstances in which most of these men grew up. When I was a child, enlightenment occupied the place of religion, and freemasonry that of the Church. Men of culture knew the Bible only by hearsay, and looked with pity on the peasant and mechanic who still read it; even clergymen uttered their tame jokes on Balaam's ass, and the walls of Jericho. During the first ten years of my establishment in Hamburgh, I sold not a single Bible, except to a few bookbinders in neighbouring country towns; and I remember very well a good sort of man who came into my shop for a Bible, and took great pains to assure me that it was for a person about to be confirmed, fearing evidently lest I should suppose it was for himself." Again: " There is something deeply affecting to me in Schiller's ' Gods of Greece, ' that mirror of the impression made on an earnest spirit by the rigid intellectuality and dismal unbelief of the age. You see there a man of lofty aspirations venting his fury against routine and hireling preachers, and painfully working his way to...