Through this translation the most advanced German thought must have become familiar to many outside the pale of the professional scholar, and among them was, doubtless, the poet Browning, if indeed he had not already become familiar with it in the original. When the content and the thought of Browning's poems upon religious subjects are examined, it becomes certain that he was familiar with the whole trend of biblical criticism in the first half of the century and of its effect upon certain of the orthodox churchmen, and that with full consciousness he brought forward in his religious poems, not didactically, but often by the subtlest indirections, his own attitude toward the problems raised in this department of scientific historical inquiry. Some of the problems which occupied his attention, such as that in "The Death in the Desert," are directly traceable to the influence of Strauss's book. Whether he knew of Strauss's argument or not when he wrote "Saul," his treatment of the story of David and Saul is not only entirely in sympathy with the creed of the German school of mythical interpreters, but the poet himself becomes one of the myth makers in the series of prophets--that is, he takes the idea, the Messianic idea, poetically embellishes an old tradition, making it glow with humanness, throws into that idea not only a content beyond that which David could have dreamed of, but suggests a purely psychical origin of the Messianic idea itself in keeping with his own thought on the subject. The history of the origin and growth of the Messianic ideal as traced by the most modern Jewish critics claims it to have been a slow evolution in the minds of the prophets. In Genesis it appears as the prophecy of a time to come of universal happiness promised to Abraham, through whose seed all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed, because they had hearkened unto the voice of God. From a family ideal in Abraham it passed on to being a tribal ideal with Jacob, and with the prophets it became a national ideal, an aspiration toward individual happiness and a noble national life. Not until the time of Isaiah is a special agent mentioned who is to be the instrument by means of which the blessing is to be fulfilled, and there we read this prophecy: "There shall sprout forth a shoot from the stem of Jesse, upon whom will rest the spirit of Yahveh, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of the knowledge and fear of God. He will not judge according to appearance, nor will he according to hearsay. He will govern in righteousness the poor, and judge with equity the humble of the earth. He will smite the mighty with the rod of his mouth, and the wicked with the breath of his lips."