Herrmann is the one of the Ritschlians who has dealt with this matter not only with great clearness, but also with deep Christian feeling in his _Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_, 1886, and notably in his address, _Der Begriff der Offenbarung_, 1887. If the motive of religion were an intellectual curiosity, a verbal communication would suffice. As it is a practical necessity, this must be met by actual impulse in life. That passing out of the unhappiness of sin, into the peace and larger life which is salvation, does indeed imply the movement of God's spirit on our hearts, in conversion and thereafter. This is essentially mediated to us through the Scriptures, especially through those of the New Testament, because the New Testament contains the record of the personality of Jesus. In that our personality is filled with the spirit which breathes in him, our salvation is achieved. The image of Jesus which we receive acts upon us as something indubitably real. It vindicates itself as real, in that it takes hold upon our manhood. Of course, this assumes that the Church has been right in accepting the Gospels as historical. Herrmann candidly faces this question. Not every word or deed, he says, which is recorded concerning Jesus, belongs to this central and dynamic revelation of which we speak. We do not help men to see Jesus in a saving way if, on the strength of accounts in the New Testament, we insist concerning Jesus that he was born of a virgin, that he raised the dead, that he himself rose from the dead. We should not put these things before men with the declaration that they must assent to them. We must not try to persuade ourselves that that which acted upon the disciples as indubitably real must of necessity act similarly upon us. We are to allow ourselves to be seized and uplifted by that which, in our position, touches us as indubitably real. This is, in the first place, the moral character of Jesus. It is his inner life which, on the testimony of the disciples, meets us as something real and active in the world, as truly now as then. What are some facts of this inner life? The Jesus of the New Testament shows a firmness of religious conviction, a clearness of moral judgment, a purity and force of will, such as are not found united in any other figure in history. We have the image of a man who is conscious that he does not fall short of the ideal for which he offers himself. It is this consciousness which is yet united in him with the most perfect humility. He lives out his life and faces death in a confidence and independence which have never been approached. He has confidence that he can lift men to such a height that they also will partake with him in the highest good, through their full surrender to God and their life of love for their fellows.