Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - L - Island of Lolland or Laaland
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chap. L.
LUTHERAN CLERGY.
295
far from it. Had they met with a little persecution,
as did the Nonconformists in the days of our Stuart
kings, their energies might have been called forth;
but in Denmark the Church of the reformed faith
was, from the first, Catholic, i.e. universal. King
Frederic II. would allow of no dissent. The first who
differed from the tenets of Martin Luther, or propounded
new doctrines, “Away with him!” was the cry; and
while, in less than a century from the establishment of
the Reformation, we find the Anabaptists skipping
about the streets of Holland in propriis naturalibus,
and, a little later, the Puritans of England cutting
off their king’s head, the Church of Denmark has
remained—stagnant it may have been, but still united.
Little has been done on the part of the Lutheran Church
to excite inquiry. “ Be content with what you know, and
don’t meddle with matters you cannot understand,” is
their maxim. But for the most part they appear to
have been good, excellent men, kind to their parishioners,
charitable, giving liberally out of their modest incomes
to those in want and sickness, and in the earlier days
to have held a higher and more respectable position in
society than did our own “ parsons,” as described in the
* History’ of Lord Macaulay.
From the amusing accounts I have run my eyes over,
I could almost imagine Sir Walter Scott had taken as
a model for his Dominie Sampson some bookworm of
the Danish Church. Absence of mind and eccentricity
apjfear to have been the special failings of these worthy
men. One learned divine always conversed with his
horse in the Latin tongue, which gave him a bad
reputation, for his parishioners looked upon it as
“necromancy.” When out riding he had all the conversation
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
