FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER:

FOURTH SERIES.

VOL. VII.]	BETHANY, VA. FEBRUARY, 1857.	[NO. II.

      A NARRATIVE of the life and labors of great and good men, is always instructive, encouraging, and consoling to those who feel the problem of the world, and would help to solve it. We have, all of us, in our peculiar sphere, a problem to work out; and while contending in our daily life with the practical difficulties and annoying perplexities which more or less, inevitably beset all men, accordingly as they more or less faithfully address themselves to their respective duties, how refreshing it is to peruse the record of a mighty spirit mastering the same difficulties that are opposing us, contending with the same embarrassments, involved in the same perplexities, assailed by the same troubles, subject to the same annoyances, and surmounting the same obstacles, that daily and hourly array themselves against us so appallingly, and occasionally bring upon our spirits such sickening discouragement.

      It has been fashionable with some to denominate Schleiermacher the Coleridge of Germany. They had, however, but few points of character or intellect in common. Our own convictions are, that the man has yet to appear among men, who, in point of intellect, can be at all comparable with our great English Corypheus. To compare one great intellect with, another, is an invidious business anyhow, and the poorest way imaginable of ascertaining the special merits or demerits of either. Germany has not produced a deeper spirit or a better man, than Schleiermacher. Noticeable, too, he died the same year with Coleridge--1834; died at Berlin. His remains are interred in the cemetery of his parish, at some little distance from the city, on its southern side. A simple monument, with a bust in white marble, of exquisite workmanship, (by Ranch,) has been erected over his grave. The following sketch is a translation of a few of the concluding pages of Dr. Lücke's "Reminiscences of Schleiermacher," published in a German periodical, shortly after the death of the subject of them. Let us read them with serene and thankful feelings that the Giver of all good gifts gave us also this one--the life, and the results of the life, of this exalted man. Should any of our readers desire any further notice of the labors, or deeper insight into the life of this man, we should be pleased to gratify them from such materials as we have at hand.

      IT is impossible for me to speak of Schleiermacher's theological character and merits, without having the entire personality of the man, [68] amiable and exalted as it was, brought to my recollections, I was taught to know and love his theology and his personality together; in him the one sustained and gave brightness to the, other, and my experience has, doubtless, been the experience of several who have occupied a position of proximity to him,--that the one became intelligible and dear to a man by means of the other. If I further attempt to delineate, from the image which I retain from his personality, some of its principal features, I know well that I want the skill to produce a portrait such as would be worthy of him; not, however, either the love or the truthfulness faithfully to describe the impression which he has made upon me in an intimate acquaintance of several years duration.

      I saw him, for the first time, in the Spring of 1816. That moment I shall never forget. I had approached him by letter some months before, and had gone to Berlin especially in consequence of the encouragement which he had afforded me, for the purpose of habilitating myself in connexion, with the, Theological Faculty there. As his letter had expressed a friendly sincerity, rather than a cordial warmth, so I found it to be with himself, too, at our first conversational meeting. It was only by degrees that the shy and timid reverence with which I had approached him, gave place to another feeling; nay, it was, at first, only increased by the admiration which the immediate presence of his powerful soul, manifesting itself in his glance and in his speech, excited within me. But just then it was the least of all my doing, that this timidity and slyness gradually disappeared, and gave place to an increasingly cordial and confidential respect. Any one who mustered courage to seek him, was very soon cordially met by him; and then, it was not merely the cheerful and jocose, kind of social intercourse by which he tempered with gentleness the oppressive might of his genius, but it was just the loving soul, opening itself, simply and naturally, to every one upon whom be had any reason for bestowing his confidence. He then no longer merely permitted an approach, but came to meet the individual, in an encouraging and confiding manner, and attracted to himself all that was susceptible and in need of love towards him. I can never think of the affectionate manner in which he drew me closer and closer towards him, bestowed upon me a constantly increasing confidence, encouraged and comforted me,--without the most grateful emotion. His love was no effeminate tenderness, accompanied by ever open, caressing speech; but an earnest compact fire, which not merely passed through the stranger's mind with a magnetic softness of attraction, but also, convulsed it like an electric shock,--"yet even thus, always possessed for such as abound in vital energy a refreshing charm." Any one that did not [69] understand and tolerate him in this guise, might easily feel himself repulsed in the midst of his approach; and thus it has happened with many, who had been accustomed to a more effeminate sort of friendship. But what he says in his Monologues is perfectly true: "I am sure of those who are really disposed to love me,--my interior nature; and finally does my soul entwine itself about them, nor will it ever forsake them. They have learnt to know me; they behold my spirit; and those who once love it as it is, must love it ever more faithfully and evermore fervently, in proportion as it develops itself, and fashions itself more durably in their sight. Of this possession I am as well assured as of my being; nor have I, as yet, lost any one that ever became dear to me in love." I am not the only one who is in a position to celebrate his fidelity and persistence in friendship.--Those who occupied a still nearer position, and bad been longer connected with him, will furnish a yet stronger testimony that he was one of the most faithful of men, and that he understood the noble art of keeping a friend, firm and warm, even in the midst of all tempers and incongruities. It is a common saying, that along with a man's advance in years, his ability and inclination to form new friendships is diminished; the bloom of youth, it is said, is the proper season for laying the foundation of friendship; the later, colder, more isolating years of life, are the less adapted to the purpose, inasmuch as persons of the same age become more rare. In this respect, too, Schleiermacher continued fresh and young; he never isolated himself. The friends of his youth were but the stock of the in him, never-dying tree of friendship, which even in his latest years put forth new branches. He knew how to set aside even the disposition of years and intellect, by the youthful freshness and serenity of his affection.

      It may sound paradoxical to the ears of strangers, and of those who judge according to appearances, but I speak with perfect truth when I affirm, that over the deepest ground of his heart love reigned supreme, from the first,--and, as time went on, even more purely and more tenderly; and that even the keenness of his intellect the stinging wit, the bitterness of speech with which he fought and wounded, were never able to overcome the love which was the foundation of his heart. I know no one that possessed so noble a tolerance, so expansive a heart, ready lovingly to judge and to bear with the most various gradations and tendencies of intellect. Notwithstanding the decision and finality which characterized his mode of thinking, he possessed a universal capability of finding out and recognizing, without envy or repining, whatever was good in others. When I lived with him in Berlin, he was the man who, in spite of all misapprehension, whenever he detected anything like ability, either among his ecclesiastical [70] or amongst his academical associates in office, was the readiest of all to yield a loving recognition and eulogy. And I remember that on more than one occasion he set younger men right, when they had let fall an arrogant, intolerant judgment respecting others. "Leave me that man in honour," was his saying; "he has ablity and merit, in his way."

      He never had reason to be afraid of any antagonist. Nor was he ever so. He was never in want of opponents; and just as little was he in want of a mind for controversy. If he was merely attacked personally, so that the attack did not at the same time affect any important cause of which he was the representative, he never defended himself. For ordinary learned controversies he had not enough either of time or of egotistic irritability. But when be saw the truth, the welfare of the Church or of the State placed in jeopardy, and thought the foe of sufficient consequence, he never delayed; weakly tolerance was then as far from his thoughts as a sparing of his time and ease. Usually the first in the field, he attacked the opponent with every force, every art, every privilege of an honorable warfare. The employment of irony, of biting wit, in controversy, he considered allowable, nay, necessary. He did not understand wherefore he should make use of the weapons which nature had bestowed upon him, and was of opinion that when the opposite party had come forward in the spirit of self-conceit, there was nothing so effective, for the purpose of enforcing upon him the salutary feelings of his own insignificance, as the lash of a stinging wit. He had a kind of pleasure in wit, an instinctive turn that way. But amidst the enlivening use of this weapon he strictly and diligently kept in view the cause itself which he had to defend. He practiced Polemics as a moral duty and art to which he felt himself inwardly called by the nature of his genius and by his love to the cause. If he had once apprehended the necessity of a controversy, he flung himself with the whole force of his personality against that antagonist. The personal element in his polemical style often served merely by way of dramatic enlivenment; bat it is in a far higher degree the nature and expression of his hearty interest in the cause at issue, an interest by which be was penetrated in the most lively manner. His mode of controversy was not convenient either to himself or to his antagonist. He made earnest work of it, and drew blood. He knew beforehand he would draw down upon himself, from this quarter and from that, evil report, hostility, anger, and revenge; he regretted this,--but, for the sake of the cause involved, he willingly accepted that which, from the ordinary character of men, was inevitable. His valor was in such cases greater than his prudence. Whatever prudence he may have had, the prudence of the indolent and the cowardly was of a kind which he ever disdained. [71]

      Always, and in every age, the number of those who labor, accomplish, and produce, to the same extent as Schleiermacher will be but small. The natural rapidity and, certainty of his mental movements does a great deal in the way of explanation. What he wrote for the press had been previously so well considered and prefaced, even with regard to the form, that--since he always possessed at the same time a mastery of language,--he never had occasion to strike out any thing. None of his sermons, none of his lectures cost him more than the time which was requisite for a thorough meditation. A small scrap of paper sufficed for his memoranda, even in lectures such as those upon the History of Philosophy. Thus in every labor, by his various proficiency, he saved time and spirits for a new intellectual acquisition and new exertion. He was, moreover, very economical with regard to time, and by this means had time for every thing that his very comprehensive vocation required of him. In his latter years, certainly, I have heard him complain that he was no longer able to accomplish all that he wished. But it is precisely the most industrious and creative class of men, by whom this complaint is most emphatically made; and the material energy, which is, also, an essential requisite, does not grow with a man's years. Schleiermacher had, altogether, but a limited capital of physical strength at his command. His bodily constitution was naturally weak and delicate--at least, in the years in which I lived with him,--and sickly, too. But what a mastery he exercised over it, compelling it, even in its sickly states, to be the servant of his mind! Labors and journeys, official activity, and social life,--his body must suffice for all and obey the requirements of all. In pedestrian travelling he always took the lead; in the evening the last to go to rest, in the morning the first to prepare for renewing the journey. I know that he has preached, and delivered lectures, when suffering from spasms of the stomach, and no one has perceived that he was ill. I have often had an opportunity of observing, that when he was in company till late in the evening, and it was not easy for such meetings to last too long for him, the most cheerful and animated of all who were there,--he has lectured or preached next morning, with freshness unimpared, often, as early as six o'clock.--This Socratic mastery and might of the spirit over the body, was a part of his inmost nature, and secured to him an age that renewed youth, with which he "smilingly saw the light of his eyes departing, and the white hair springing up between the locks of blond,"--with which even in his latest breath, be maintained so lively a participation both in the earnest labor and in the cheerful enjoyment of life.--Of the singular account which we have lately heard,^* that "whoever [72] had occasion to observe him within the last three years of his life, will be able to testify that he was the subject of an often irresistible sadness, a prostration, an inability to contend against sorrow, which was such as to excite compassion,"--of this apocryphal compassionate story I understand nothing. "A domestic calamity," it is said, "furnished the first inducement to this state of mind; or, to express myself more correctly, the death of his only son tore away the first flood-gates which still dammed up the feelings of a broken existence,--broken, he himself, perhaps, knew not how. From that time there was an affecting joyousness in Schleiermacher's preaching; the plan of his masterly discourses remained the same, but his tone, his manner, the solution of his dialectic enigmas, had undergone a change. One would not believe it, and yet he might every Sunday convince himself of the fact,--that Schleiermacher never again left the pulpit without shedding tears: "and so the story devoid of taste or connexion, goes on still further, and becomes at last so senseless as to exhibit to us a man who shut both eye and ear, and with tears entreated his congregation to do nothing but be resigned, and "close their eyes and ears." What a piece of nonsense! What an unfamiliar, nay, what an impossible Schleiermacher has this marvellous dreamer beheld? The death of his only and hopeful son did communicate a most vehement shock to his mind. But a man who could so lift himself up amidst the first sorrows of his parental heart,--go to the grave of his ardently beloved son,--and speak with such composure, such strength of faith, as Schleiermacher did,--could not, either then or afterwards, have had the feelings of a broken existence. Schleiermacher possessed by nature a very profound and powerful sensibility, but he had also an equally energetic power of mind to govern it at all times.--Long before the death of his son, I have seen him leave the pulpit with tears in his eyes. This profoundest stirring up of his religious feeling, however, merely gave, to his discoursing the full warmth of conviction; it never hindered him from thinking and speaking clearly and with power. I saw him at two different times after the death of his beloved son, but on both occasions, I found in him the same Christian sophrosne with which in previous years, he had been able to master both bodily and mental pain, and to dictate to his feeling its proper measure.

      Schleiermacher has this in common with the greatest and noblest of men, that there is something animating, even about his death. It was the reflection, nay, the glorification of his life.

      That, when the tiding of his death resounded, not merely in Berlin, but through all Germany, nay, as far as the German name extends, all [73] was consternation and Borrow, over the great, irreparable loss,--that friends and pupils, admirers, opponents, strangers, his congregation, at Church and at the High School, the entire city in which he had lived, the Court, and the people vied with one another in giving splendor to his funeral,--this is assuredly no mere outward testimony to the greatness of his name. It is much, and it is beautiful, but this is not what I have in view. I am referring to the inward history of his death. I have read the record of the observations, made with the at. tentiveness of affection, and committed to writing for the benefit of his more intimate friends, by her, who, in life, was nearest to him, and who, during his last days, did not leave him for a moment. As much of this as is suitable for a more extended circulation, I am permitted to communicate. "The temper of his mind through the whole course of his illness, was marked by a serene and gentle tranquility, a punctual compliance with every direction; there was never a sound of complaining or discontent; he was always alike cheerful and patient, although grave and retired within himself." "One day, he awoke from a slumber into which he had been thrown by means of opium, he called his beloved consort to his bed-side, and said, 'I am, to be sure, properly speaking, in a state which fluctuates between consciousness and the absence of consciousness, but inwardly I am spending most heartfelt religious experiences."'

      I find in this incident a beautiful crowning of his life with glory.--The man who struggled his whole life long to attain the higher unity of the religious and the speculative, but who, with modesty and caution, regrarded it not as the commencement, but the ultimate aim of his thinking,-- receives it as a reward and signal of departure for the heavenly kingdom, in those moments when the outward man dies, in order that the inward man may rise free and pore, to the perfect enjoyment of eternal life in God!

      The last days and hours of his life were pervaded by the presence of religion. Even his dreams were reflexes of his religious life and activity. "I have had such a beautiful dream," he said on one occasion, "and this dream has left with me quite a peculiar and salutary frame of mind. I was in a very large assembly,-- there were many persons, familiar, and unfamiliar, all looking at me, and wishing to bear from me something of a religious character, it was in the nature of an instruction, and I gave it with so much pleasure?" Affectionately mindful of children, and friends and, in proportion as he drew nearer to the important moment, more profoundly immerged in love, as the inmost spring of his being, he said, "To the children I leave the saying of St. John, 'Love one another! "' 66 And I charge thee," said he to his consort, 16 to salute all my friends, and tell them how heartily I loved them." [74]

      He had soon become certain of his approaching death; he would have been glad to remain with those who were dear to him; he felt that he had yet much of hardness to endure, before arriving at eternal rest; but he went to meet the last conflict with composure, and with devotedness to the sacred will of the Eternal Love.

      "The last morning, his suffering visibly increased, he complained of a violent sensation of burning, inwardly, and the first and last murmur forced its way from his lips,-- 'Alas, Lord, my pain is great!' In a deeply affecting manner he then said to his family, "Dear children, you should now all of you go from the room, and leave me alone: I would fain spare you the woeful spectacle.' The perfect lineaments of death presented themselves; his eye appeared to have grown dim, his death-struggle to have been accomplished. At this moment he laid his two fore-fingers upon his left eye, as he often did when reflecting deeply, and began to speak: "We have the reconciliation--death of Jesus Christ, his body and his blood." While thus engaged, he had raised himself up, his features began to grow animated, his voice became clear and strong, and he said with priestly solemnity. "Are ye one with me in this faith?" to which his friends replied with aloud "Yea!" "Then let us celebrate the Lord's Supper! But there can be no talk about the sacristan. Quick, quick! let no one, stumble at matters of form!" After that which was necessary for the purpose had been fetched, (his friends having waited with him. during the interval, in solemn silence,) he began with increasing radiant features, and eyes in which there had returned a wonderful, indescribable brightness, nay, a sublime, glow of affection, with which he looked upon those around him,--to utter a few words of prayer and of introduction to the sacred service. After this, addressing in full and aloud to each individual, and last of all to himself, the words of the institution, he first gave the bread and the wine to the others who were present, then partook of them himself, and said, 61 Upon these words of Scripture I abide; they are the foundation of my faith."After- he had pronounced the benediction, his eye turned once more towards his consort with an expression of perfect love, and then he looked at each individual with affecting and fervent cordiality, uttering these words,--"Thus are we, and abide in this love and fellowship, one!

      He laid himself back upon the pillow. The radiance still Tested upon his features. After some minutes he said, "Now I can hold out here no longer;" and again, "Give me another position." He was laid upon his side; he breathed a few times, life came to a stand. The children had entered the room in the meantime, and surrounded the bed, kneeling. His eye gradually closed." [75]

      In the anguish of sorrow, and in the feeling of spiritual elevation I have nothing to add further, save the words of Scripture, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!" and, in recollection of the saying with which I once dedicated a book to him, "Be mindful of your teachers, who have spoken to you the word of God; whose end contemplate, and be followers of their faith!"

A. P. H.      

[The Millennial Harbinger (February 1857): 68-76.]

      Alban P. Hooke's "Schleiermacher" was first published in The Millennial Harbinger, Fourth Series, Vol. 7, No. 2, February 1857. The electronic version of the essay has been produced from the College Press reprint (1976) of The Millennial Harbinger, ed. Alexander Campbell (Bethany, VA: A. Campbell, 1857), pp. 68-76.

      For information on this little-known Disciple, see Hans Rollmann's "Alban P. Hooke, an Unusual Contributor to the Millennial Harbiner" in Discipliana 58 (Summer 1998): 60-64.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. I have let stand variations and inconsistencies in the author's (or editor's) use of italics, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in the essay. Emendations are as follows:

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      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
724.694.8602
stefanik@westol.com

Created 20 July 1998.