[81] Besides the Evangelical Church Gazette, semi-weekly, by Hengstenberg, established 1827, are the Studien und Kritiken, by Ullmann and Umbreit, 1828; the Deutsche Zeitschrift für christliche Wissenschaft, &c., by Neander, Nitzsch, and Müller, 1850; and the Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie, by Liebner, Dorner, and others, 1856.
[82] An invaluable account of the common and higher Schools of Germany is furnished in Horace Mann's Seventh Annual Report, published in the Common School Journal of Boston, under the title of Education in Europe, 1844.
[83] Hagenbach, Kirchengeschichte d. 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts, Vol. II., pp. 384-388.
[84] An instance of the new tendency is seen in the recent action of the Heilbronn Clergy, supported by the Stuttgart Consistory. For account of which, see Christian Work, Sept. 1863.
CHAPTER XIII.
PRACTICAL MOVEMENTS INDICATING NEW LIFE.
Jean Paul has wittily said of the providential distribution of the earth that the land was assigned to the French, the sea to the English, and the air to the Germans. Popular opinion is not much at variance with this sentiment as far as the last proprietorship is concerned. But Germany has been practical withal. Shade of Jean Paul! What if thy countrymen do live in the air; they have not therefore flown so far away from the gross nether earth as to lose sight of its misery, nor become deaf to its wail of sorrow.
German Protestantism has given birth to some of the greatest charities of the present age, whether we take into the account the number of the beneficiaries or the faith and self-sacrifice of the founders and their successors. Even during the period of religious indifference there were here and there celebrated institutions designed for the amelioration of the suffering classes. They contended against great opposition, but like a few stars amid surrounding clouds, their light appeared to all the greater advantage. Modern philanthropy has received a great impulse by the labors of Howard and Wilberforce. But the charitable institutions we speak of were in progress east of the Rhine years before the former commenced "his voyage of discovery, his circumnavigation of charity, to collate distresses, to gauge wretchedness, to take dimensions of human misery;" or before the latter could write in 1807, after so many labors for the extinction of the Slave Trade, "Oh what thanks do I owe to the Giver of all good for bringing me in his gracious providence to this great cause, which at length, after almost nineteen years, labor, is successful."