[11]
[Footnote 11: With reference to what he says of his Biblical studies
he wrote as follows to a correspondent (January 30th, 1812)
[Transcriber's Note: corrected error "1912"]: "Dass Sie meine
asiatischen Weltanfaenge so freundlich aufnehmen, ist mir von grossem
Wert. Es schlingt sich die daher fuer mich gewonnene Kultur durch mein
ganzes Leben...."]
There was nothing in the influence of his home that was specially
fitted to awaken religious feeling or to occasion abnormal spiritual
experiences. In religion as in everything else the father was a
formalist, and such religious views as he held were those of the
_Aufklaerung_, for which all forms of spiritual emotion were the folly
of unreason. Religion was a permanent and sustaining influence in the
life of Goethe's mother, but her religion consisted simply in a
cheerful acquiescence in the decrees of Providence. Of the soul's
trials and sorrows, as they are recorded in the annals of the
religious life, her nature was incapable, and she was always perfectly
at ease in Zion. By his mother, therefore, the son could not be deeply
moved to concern regarding his spiritual welfare, nor to make religion
the all-engrossing subject of his thoughts and affections.
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