The impression of a candid reader of the essay must be, that
the writer indorses almost all of Bunsen's opinions without having the
courage to avow his assent. Of his hero he says, "Bunsen's enduring
glory is neither to have faltered with his conscience, nor shrunk from
the difficulties of the problem, but to have brought a vast erudition,
in the light of a Christian conscience, to unroll tangled records;
tracing frankly the Spirit of God elsewhere, but borrowing chiefly the
traditions of his Hebrew Sanctuary."[177]
The absence of that reverence to be expected in all whose vocation
enjoins the frequent reading of the sublime liturgy of the Church of
England, produces a depressing influence upon any one not in sympathy
with the doctrines of Rationalism. The Evangelical theologians are
termed "The despairing school, who forbid us to trust in God or in our
own conscience, unless we kill our souls with literalism."[178] The
inquiries and successes of the German Rationalists are worthy of hearty
admiration, for they are so great that the world has seldom, if ever,
seen their equal.
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