by emendations than they can improve a rose by the use of a penknife. Each clipping or puncture destroys some natural charm. But the music accompanying the hymns was doomed to a like fate. The old chorals, which had been lingering in those renowned gothic temples ever since the days of Luther, were so altered as to stand upon the same footing with the hymns themselves. All sentiment was extracted, as quite out of place, and sublimity was made to give way to a more temperate and stoical standard. In due time the Rationalists effected their purpose. Secular music was introduced into the sanctuary; an operatic overture generally welcomed the people into church, and a march or a waltz dismissed them. Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an element of devotion. The oratorios and cantata of the theatre and beer-garden were the Sabbath accompaniments of the sermon. The masses consequently began to sing less; and the period of coldest skepticism in Germany, like similar conditions in other lands, was the season when the congregations, the common people, and the children sang least and most drowsily. We now behold Protestant Germany in the full possession of a shrewd, powerful, and aggressive system of infidelity. The most thorough student of church history must conclude that no other kind of skepticism has received more aid from external sources. Everything that appeared on the surface of the times contributed its mite toward the spiritual petrification of the masses. Hamann, Oetinger, Reinhard, Lavater, and Storr were insufficient for the great task of counteraction, while Rationalism could count its strong men by the score and hundred. Literature, philosophy, history, education, and sacred music were so influenced by increasing indifference and doubt that when the people awoke to their condition they found themselves in a strange latitude and on a dangerous coast. But they thought themselves safe. They could not see how each new feature in politics, literature, and theology was affecting them in a remarkable manner; and how so many influences from opposite quarters could contribute to the same terrible result,--the total overthrow of evangelical faith. FOOTNOTES: [36] Moehler's _Symbolism_: Memoir of Author. [37] Schlosser, _History of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. 2, pp. 33-41. [38] Kahnis: _German Protestantism_, p. 216. [39] Rose, _State of Protestantism in Germany_, pp. 178-181. CHAPTER VIII. DOCTRINES OF RATIONALISM IN THE DAY OF ITS STRENGTH.