The _Discourses_ produced a deep impression. They inspired the class to
whom they had been directed with what it needed most of all, _a sense of
dependence_. One could not read them and close the volume without
wondering how reason could be deified and the feeling of the heart
ignored. There were multitudes of the educated and cultivated throughout
the land who, having become unfriendly to Christianity through the
persistence of the Rationalists, were equally indisposed to be satisfied
with a mere destructive theology. Something positive was what they
wanted; hence the great service of Schleiermacher in directing them to
Christianity as the great sun in the heavens, and then to the heart as
the organ able to behold the light. His labor was inestimably valuable.
His utterances were full of the enthusiasm of youth, and, years later,
he became so dissatisfied with the work, that he said it had grown
strange even to himself. As if over-careful of his reputation, to a
subsequent edition he appended large explanatory notes in order to
harmonize his recent with his former views.
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