“ The battle of his life was on behalf of personal religious experience, in opposition to the externality of rationalism, orthodoxy or sacramentarianism. Karl Schwarz happily remarks that, as the English apologists of the 18th century were themselves infected with the poison of the deists whom they endeavoured to refute, so Tholuck absorbed some of the heresies of the rationalists whom he tried to overthrow. He was also one of the prominent members of the Evangelical Alliance, and few men were more widely known or more beloved throughout the Protestant churches of Europe and America than he. ”

“ As a preacher, Tholuck ranked among the foremost of his time. As a teacher, he showed remarkable sympathy and won great success. As a thinker he can hardly be said to have been endowed with great creative power. ”

“ He received his education at the gymnasium and university of his native town, and early distinguished himself by great versatility of mind and power of acquiring languages. A love of Oriental languages and literature led him to exchange the university of Breslau for that of Berlin, that he might study to greater advantage, and there he was received into the house of the Orientalist Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (1750-1817) . ”