here endeavoured to present to the noble and profound thinker, whom I am still so happy as to call my teacher, my friend.
LETTER XLII.
TO THE PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY,
DR. H. MARTENSEN.
Of the happy time during which I was able every week to enjoy your society and conversation, I retain in my soul two especial moments as focuses of that light which, through the mercy of God, flowed from your soul into mine. The one was that evening when, emboldened by the struggle of my spirit, and by your goodness, I vindicated the teachings of heathenism against those of Christianity, enquiring after the new life, until I made you angry, but by so doing drew from your lips a word before which my spirit became silent, because it perceived therein the true answer to my enquiry, and the arising of the new life. The second moment was the completion of the first. Many questions had become entangled into one single knot. You disentangled them by a single blow of that spiritual sword, which is at the same time the sword of the Word, and of discriminating reason, which the Eternal Word has placed in your hand, accompanied by a power but rarely given to mortals. The effect of these two words, which still resound in my inner being, was, that they reached the very core of the subject, and called forth within me that which was essential, that which was vital.
Would that I might do the same now, in giving you an account of the new life which, during the two years which have elapsed since we parted, I have contemplated in that great Western land, whither I went, as I had gone before to you, as an enquirer, a seeker.
