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xiv INTRODUCTION
of the sufficient explanation suggested above, without in-
fluence in lessening his production of short poems. This
crisis was in his religious beliefs. His father was.a clergy-
man in the Lutheran State Church, and from his home in
western Norway Bjornson brought with him to Christiania
in 1850 fervent Christian faith of the older orthodox sort.
Here his somewhat somber religion was soon made brighter
and more tender by the adoption of Grundtvig’s teachings,
and until past mid-life he remained a sincere Christian in
the fullest sense, as is repeatedly shown in his lyrics. But
in the years just before 1877 study of modern science and
philosophy, of the history of the Church and dogma, led
him to become an evolutionist, an agnostic theist. Never-
theless, he ever practiced the Christian art of life, as he
tried to realize his ideals of truth, justice, and love of
humanity. This large and simple Christian art of life, in
distinction from the dogmas of the Church, he early sung
in lines which sound no less true to the keynote of his later
years:
Love thy neighbor, to Christ be leal!
Crush him never with iron-héel,
Though in the dust he’s lying!
All the living responsive await
Love with power to recreate,
Needing alone the trying.
ul
The quantity, then, of Bjornson’s short poems is small.
Their intrinsic worth is great. Their influence in Nor-
way has been broad and deep, they are known and loved
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