He would never have spiritual peace, Fraeulein von Klettenberg told him till he had a "reconciled God." Goethe's rejoinder was that it should be put the other way.

Considering his recent sufferings and his own good intentions, it was God who was in arrears to him and who had something to be forgiven.

The Fraeulein charitably condoned the blasphemy, but she and her fellow-believers were assuredly in the right when they denied the blasphemer the name of _Christian_.

Yet, as has been said, Goethe in his own way was seriously in search of a faith that would satisfy both his intellect and his heart, and he even attempted to construct one.

A book that fell into his hands, Gottfried Arnold's _Impartial History of the Church and of Heretics_,[52] prompted the attempt.