The world has seldom seen a literary venture more remarkable in contents or in history than this meteor across the firmament of German theology. To say that it was unexpected is but a faint expression of the universal surprise occasioned by it. The Left Hegelians were a limited school and the current of theological thought had been against them. Therefore, when the _Life of Jesus_ appeared, it was a bold thrust from an arm thought to possess but little strength. The author, David Frederic Strauss, was a young lecturer on theology in the University of Tuebingen. He had experienced the several shades of opinion prevalent during his student life. Beginning with the Romantic School, lingering awhile with Schleiermacher, and finally passing through the gate Beautiful of Hegel's system, he tarried with that master as "lord of the hill." His stay was not brief, like that of Bunyan's pilgrim. But satisfied only by making greater progress, the philosophy of the great thinker became his Delectable Mountains, "beautiful with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold." Strauss was but twenty-eight years old when his cold, passionless, and pungent piece of skeptical mechanism was presented to the world. Who would suspect that quiet young man of possessing so much power over the minds of his countrymen? M. Quinet, speaking of a visit to him, said, "Beneath this mask of fatalism I find in him a young man full of candor, of sweetness and modesty; of a spirit almost mystical, and apparently saddened by the disturbance which he had occasioned." His book produced a universal impression in Europe. It was, to the moral sentiment of Christendom, the earthquake shock of the nineteenth century. Having been multiplied in cheap editions, it was read by students in every university and gymnasium, by passengers on the Rhine boats and in the mountain stages, and by a great number of private families. Even school children, imitating the example of their seniors, spent their leisure hours in its perusal. The most obscure provincial papers contained copious extracts from it, and vied with each other in defending or opposing its positions. Crossing the German frontier, it was published in complete and abridged forms in all the principal languages of Europe. Even staid Scotland, unable to escape the contagion, issued a popular edition of the exciting work.