§ 176.1. The old =Rationalism= was attacked by the disciples of Hegel and Schelling, and in A.D. 1834 Röhr of Weimar found Hase of Jena as keen an opponent as any pietist or orthodox controversialist. That recognised leader of the old rationalists had coolly attempted to substitute a new and rational form of doctrine, worship, and constitution for the antiquated formularies of the Reformation, and drew down upon himself the rebuke even of those who sympathized with him in his doctrinal views.--In A.D. 1817 Claus Harms of Kiel, on the occasion of the Reformation centenary, opened an attack upon those who had fallen away from the faith of their fathers, by the publication of ninety-five new theses, recalling attention to Luther’s almost forgotten doctrines. In A.D. 1827 Aug. Hahn in an academical discussion at Leipzig maintained that the rationalists should be expelled from the church, and Hengstenberg started his _Evangelische Kirchenzeitung_. The jurist Von Gerlach in A.D. 1830 charged Gesenius and Wegscheider of Halle with open contempt of Christian truth, and called for State interference. In all parts of Germany, amid the opposition of scientific theologians and the scorn of philosophers, pietism made way against rationalism, so that even men of culture regarded it as a reproach to be reckoned among the rationalists. Unbelief, however, was widespread among the masses. When Sintenis, preacher in Magdeburg in A.D. 1840, declared the worship of Christ superstitious, and was reprimanded by the consistory, his neighbours, the pastors Uhlich and König, founded the society of the “Friends of Light,” whose assembly at Köthen then was attended by thousands of clergymen and laymen. In one of these assemblies in A.D. 1844, Wislicenus of Halle, by starting the question, Whether the Scriptures or the reason is to be regarded as the standard of faith? shattered the illusion that rationalism still occupied the platform of the church and Scripture. The left wing of the school of Schleiermacher took offence at the severe measures demanded by Hengstenberg and his party, and in 1846 issued in Berlin a manifesto with eighty-eight signatures against the paper pope of antiquated Reformation confessions and the inquisitorial proceedings of the _Kirchenzeitung_ party, as inimical to all liberty of faith and conscience, wishing only to maintain firm hold of the truth that Jesus Christ is yesterday, to-day, and for ever the one and only ground of salvation. The Friends of Light, combining with the German Catholics and the Young Hegelians, founded Free churches at Halle, Königsberg, and many other places. Their services and sermons void of religion, in which the Bible, the living Christ, and latterly even the personal God, had no place, but only the naked worship of humanity, had temporary vitality imparted them by the revolutionary movements of A.D. 1848.