Among these is one so
well authenticated by well-known witnesses of undoubted veracity, that,
having never before been published, I venture to relate it here.
My informant was Professor Tholuck, of Halle University, the most
eminent living theologian in Germany, and the principal ecclesiarch of
the Prussian Church. He prefaced the account by assuring me that it
was received from the lips of De Wette himself, immediately after the
occurrence,--that De Wette was an intimate personal friend, a plain,
practical man, of remarkably clear and vigorous intellect, with no more
poetry and imagination in his nature than just sufficient to keep him
alive,--in a word, that he would rely upon his coolness of judgment
and accuracy of observation, under any possible combination of
circumstances, as confidently as upon those of any man in the world.
Dr. De Wette, the famous German Biblical critic, returning home one
evening between nine and ten o'clock, was surprised, upon arriving
opposite the house in which he resided, to see a bright light burning in
his study. In fact, he was rather more than surprised; for he distinctly
remembered to have extinguished the candles when he went out, an hour or
two previously, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket, which,
upon feeling for it, was still there. Pausing a moment to wonder by
what means and for what purpose any one could have entered the room, he
perceived the shadow of a person apparently occupied about something in
a remote corner.
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