ABSTRACT
From the preserved accounts of Bishop Mynster’s ‘visitations’ we are informed
that there were many rationalistic priests round about the parishes of the country
in the 1830s and 1840s. It nevertheless remains clear that new ground had been
broken long before this time. The theologians of the university, together with an
ever-increasing number of priests, felt that the Christianity of the eighteenth
century was no longer adequate. They were no longer prepared to accept a
dogma-free rationalism, Jesus’ mild doctrine and grandiose morality; at the
same time, they were increasing their understanding of the importance of the
Scriptures and were moving in the direction of a biblical and positive under-
standing of Christianity whose centerpiece was faith in Jesus’ redemptive death.
