In France the same tendency was seen, though with striking
variations from the course of events in other countries--variations
due to the very different conditions under which biblical students
in France were obliged to work. Down to the middle of the
nineteenth century the orthodoxy of Bossuet, stiffly opposing the
letter of Scripture to every step in the advance of science, had
only yielded in a very slight degree. But then came an event
ushering in a new epoch. At that time Jules Simon, afterward so
eminent as an author, academician, and statesman, was quietly
discharging the duties of a professorship, when there was brought
him the visiting card of a stranger bearing the name of "Ernest
Renan, Student at St. Sulpice." Admitted to M. Simon's library,
Renan told his story. As a theological student he had devoted
himself most earnestly, even before he entered the seminary, to the
study of Hebrew and the Semitic languages, and he was now obliged,
during the lectures on biblical literature at St.
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