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366 VIII. THE MODERN PERIOD (A.D. 18121910).
2. E. G. GEIJER (17831847), THE HISTORIAN, AND HIS
CONTEMPORARIES. HlS SERVICES TO RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT. FRANZEN, BISHOP OF HERNOSAND
(1772 1847). ESAIAS TEGNER, BISHOP OF
VEXIO (17821846), AND J. O. WALLIN, ARCH
BISHOP (17791839). HIS GREATNESS AS A
PREACHER AND HYMN WRITER.
Almost as important as the work of Schartau for the re
generation of Swedish religious thought must, I think, be
set the influence of one who was not by any means
primarily a theologian, Eric Gustaf Geijer (1783 1847).
His essay On False and True Enlightenment in Relation
to Religion marked an epoch in the religious revival. It
was published as early as 1811, and had an immense
influence over the whole of the rising generation of in
tellectual men, which was beginning to look for something
better than the free thought of the French Revolu
tion. Of this essay H. Reuterdahl, the most important
theologian in Sweden of the first half of the nineteenth cen
tury, wrote:
"
It was this treatise that thirty years ago
attracted a great part of the younger generation of Sweden
to inward and spiritual things. It was as important to
Sweden, though in a somewhat less degree, as Schleier-
macher s speeches about religion for Germany. Acquaint
ance with this treatise was for many (as for myself) the
cause of their passage from an unconscious to a conscious
and riper life."
8
Geijer was not only the greatest historian
of Sweden, but he wrote in a philosophical and imagina
tive spirit which has been too often deficient in the literary
men of his native country. He was a poet, orator and
musical composer, and, therefore, found many points of
3
Quoted in P.jR.E. 3
, 18, p. 39, s.v. Schweden, article by
Gustaf Aulen. The same writer has published an important
monograph, PL Reuterdahl 1
s Teologiska dskddning med sdrskild
hansyn till hans stallning till Schleiermacher, Uppsala, 1907.
He speaks there also of Geijer s influence, pp. 14 foil., but shows
that Schleiermacher s was greater.
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