THOLUCK
36;
THOLUCK
ticulm; The third of these works appeared in 1826, and was one of learning — Speculations Dj't/ic Later Oriental- ists respecting the Doctrine of the Trinity.
Wliile at Berlin, the great crisis in his religions life was approaching, and actually took place. In order to understand this, it is necessary carefully to read his work Sin and Redemption, or the True Consecration of a Sceptic. This was published in 1825, and was, in ef- fect, a refutation of De Wette's Theodore, or the Conse- cration of the Sceptic. It describes the conversion of two young theologians, Julius and Guido, who were, no doubt, Dr. Julius Miiller and the writer himself. Tliis work was written in three weeks, and, like many books written off-hand, it has had remarkable success. Still more insight into Tholuck's spiritual life is caught in his address on the evening preceding the jubilee of December, 1870. A few of its thoughts may here be reproduced, for they furnish the key to his extraordi- nary success in winning souls to Christ:
"Those whom I see around me are not merely ray pu- pils,normy admirers,but my friends — my friends in Christ, many of them also my children in Christ, whom I have also borne with much pain. My course has l)een designated a siiccessful life mitong youth. I have had not merely to water like Apollos, but to plant with Paul, and introduce new life into dead, corrupt, and wayward youthful hearts. But this can only be where the spirit of tire is the beam of a divine influence from God. Nothing Alls me more with adoring wonder than to think how this spirit of lire has ever been siven to me since the hour when I received the baptit-m of tire from above. From the age of seven- teen I have always asked myself, ' What is the chief end of man's lifef I could never pei>uade myself that the ac- quisition of knowledge was this end. Just then God broM^iht me into contact with a venerable saint who lived ill fellowship with Christ, and from that time / have had but one passion, and that is Christ, and Christ alone. Ev- ery one out of Christ I look upon as a fortress which I iiiiist stonn and win. I was in my eiirhteenih year when the Lord save me my first convert. He was an artilleiy officer, a Jew, a wild creature, without rest ; but soon he became such a true follower of Christ that he put me to shame. And when I look back upon the thousands of youths whose hearts have opened up under my influence, I can only say the. Lord hath done if. In working thus to save souls, my life has been one of joy rather than toil. Among the students were many frivolous, careless ones. I just now remeinber one wliom a mother laid on my heart, but who soon fell amonjr companions who led him astray, so that he could be found at home only at six in the morniu<). More than once I have visited him at that hour, and also in prison, but all seemed in vain, till one day in the sermon I said, 'Ah, yes, we preachers should have hard work were it not that we have one in league with us in every heart, even the most careless, that says, while we are preachers, "Well, the preacher is right."' The next evening I received a letter from him, in which he promised to t;ive up evil and enter upon a new life. Alas I four or live days later a card came from him with only these words — ' Tholuck is sighing, Tholiick is praii- ing, but I am drinking like a brute.'' Yet my labor was not in vain, for he is now a noted preacher of the Gospel of Christ. And what a number of those who were once n\}' students have risen up and can now say, each one, like myself, ' [ have but one passion, and that is Christ, and Christ alone!' "
Happy the veteran saint and scholar who could, in a green old age, look back upon such labors! He had all the more contidence in the power of Christianity from having felt it in his own heart. When he left the gymnasium to enter the university, his oration was on The Superiority of MohanimedaHism orer Christianity. He was especially prejudiced against experimental Christianity, which was then called Pietism and iNIysti- cism. He thought it checked all vigor of action and freedom of thought, and impressed on every counte- nance the pale hue of death, and that all who adopted it must turn their view from the lioinidless magnifi- cence of the starry heavens and dwell in the damp and gloom of a catacomb. Neander exerted a great indu- cnee on him for good, but it was especially baron von Kottwitz who was the instrument of his conversion, as well as of his friends Olshausen, Julius Muller, and liich- ard Hot he.
On Dec. 2, 1820, Tholuck passed his examination as licentiate of theology at the Berlin University. This was a daring step, fur he then suffered from a complaint
which, according to three |ihysicians whom he consult- ed at the reipiest of baron von Kottwitz, was to end in speedy death. But a young physician, without curing him, removed the imminent danger, and he could go on in his work. Through the considerateness and liberal- ity of the Prussian government, he went to England in 1825, and spent nearly a year there in travels uiuler- taken for the purpose of )>rosecuting scientific researches. On his return to Berlin in 182(), he was called to till the chair of ordinary theology at Halle, made vacant by the death of Dr. Knapp. Notwithstanding his promotion to the position of extraordinary professor of theology at Berlin, so deeply was he imbued with the spirit and in- terested in the prosecution of the work of Francke at Halle that the daily longing of his heart was that he might be transferred to the university founded by him. "Ever}' day," says he," I ])rayed to God that he might be pleased to call me to that place where, a hundred years before, August H. Francke had built his Orphan Asylum, and had, by his addresses both from the pulpit and from the chair, gathered a faithful commmiity, teaching that the first stage on the way to the tree of knowledge was by the tree of life." His prayer was an- swered, the mantle of Francke fell upon him, and, by a remarkable coincidence of rrovidcnce, after laboring as his successor for nK)re than fifty years, his burial took place within one day of the 150th anniversary of the burial of Francke, and the passage selected as the text of the preacher at the obsecjuies of Francke served the same purpose at the funeral of Tholuck — " Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded." from the Gospel for the .Sunday (.Inne 10) on which Tholuck died.