Note 138 — Chapter XXI · FREETHOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

On the last day of the year he wrote an “afterword” summing up his work and his position. He had not written, he declared, by way of contending with opponents; he had sought rather to commune with those of his own way of thinking; and to them, he felt, he had the right to appeal to live up to their convictions, not compromising with other opinions, and not adhering to any Church. For his “Confession” he anticipated the thanks of a more enlightened future generation. “The time of agreement,” he concluded, “will come, as it came for the Leben Jesu; only this time I shall not live to see it.”138 A little more than a year later (1874) he passed away.