Like other children, he was quick to see the inconsistency of the
creed he was taught with the actual facts of experience. One event in
his childhood, the earthquake of Lisbon, especially struck him as a
confounding commentary on the accepted belief in the goodness of God;
and the impression was deepened when in the following summer a violent
thunder-storm played havoc with some of the most treasured books in
his father's library. In all his soul's troubles, however, Goethe,
according to his own account, found refuge in a world where
questionings of the ways of Providence had never found an entrance. In
the Old Testament, and specially in the Book of Genesis, with its
picture of patriarchal life, he found a world which by engaging his
feelings and imagination worked with tranquilising effect (_stille
Wirkung_) on his spirit, distracted by his miscellaneous studies and
his varied interests. Of all the elements that entered into his early
culture, indeed, Goethe gives the first place to the Bible. "To it,
almost alone," he expressly says, "did I owe my moral education." To
the Bible as an incomparable presentment of the national life and
development of a people, and the most precious of possessions for
human culture, Goethe bore undeviating testimony at every period of
his life.
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