The views of Semler, possessing great power of fascination, soon gained popular strength. As a result, the strictly literary tastes of the people took a theological turn and the Bible became the theme of every aspirant to authorship. As no system had yet been advanced by the Rationalists, there was wide range for doctrinal and exegetical discussion. The devoted Pietists, who were now in the background, looked on in amazement as they trembled for the pillars of faith. They knew not what to do. Many of their number had proved themselves fanatics and brought odium upon the revered names of Spener and Francke. Their enemies were traveling in foreign lands, ransacking the libraries of other tongues to bring home the poisonous seeds of doubt. At home, the University was the training school of ungoverned criticism. History, science, literature, and philology were only prized according to the measure of strength they possessed to combat the great claims of the orthodox church. Besides, the Rationalists seemed to be impartial inquirers. They set themselves to understand the Scriptural lands and languages, while their progress in recent Biblical literature gained for them the respect of many who, though less learned, were more evangelical. The masses have always paid homage to learning, and in this case, it was the attainments of the Illuminists which gave them a standing denied to the friends of the Bible. The times were all astir with the evidences of mental progression. There was now a resurrection of European activity. Look whither you will, there was nowhere either the spirit of sleep or of sloth. The science of government, the beauties of aesthetic culture, the discoveries of the material world, and the long-sealed mysteries of philology, were each the centre of a host of admirers and votaries. As in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Europe arose from the torpidity of the Middle Ages, so did the eighteenth century witness a new revival from the darkness and sluggishness of Continental Protestantism. There appeared to be a universal repudiation of old methods, and a new civilization was now the aim of every class of literary adventurers. Semler had struck the key-note of human pride. He had so flattered his race by saying that the Bible was not so sacred as to be exempt from criticism, that his contemporaries would not willingly let his words fall to the ground. The temptation was too strong to be resisted, and soon the Scriptures became a carcass around which the vultures of Germany gathered to satisfy the cravings of their wanton hunger. We do not say that the destructionists desired to injure the faith of the people, or to cast odium upon the pages that Luther and Melanchthon had unfolded to the German heart. But believing as they did that the popular respect for the Bible was sheer Bibliolatry, and that therefore the dignity of reason was compromised, they bestirred themselves to show every weak point in the faith of the church.