his neighbours; he is virtuous, and all that he does springs from
compassion and love of the true and right.' Very well, open your heart
and examine it. You meet a beggar in the street; the first thought
that occurs to you is certainly as follows: 'How unfortunate this man
is; I will do a good deed and help him.' You pity him and give him a
coin. But haven't you some thought of this kind?--'Oh, how beautiful
it is to be benevolent and compassionate; it does one's heart good to
give alms to a poor man.' What is the real motive of your action? Is it
really love or compassion? Then your dear 'ego' gets up and condemns
you. You did it for your own sake, in order to set at rest _your_ heart
and to placate _your_ conscience.
"It was for some time my intention to be a preacher, certainly a good
intention. But what was my motive? Was it to serve my Redeemer, and to
work for Him, or only out of love to Him? No, I was cowardly, and I
wished to escape my burden and lighten my cross, and avoid the great
temptations which met me everywhere. I feared men--that was the motive.
The times alter. I saw that I could not lead a life in Christ in the
society of companions to whose godless speeches I must daily listen,
and so I chose another path in life where I could be independent, or at
any rate----"
Here the essay broke off, uncorrected. Other essays deal with the
Creator, and seem to have been influenced by Rousseau, extracts from
whose works were contained in Staaff's _French Reading Book_. They
mention, for example, flocks and nightingales, which the writer had
never seen or heard.
He and his friend also had long discussions regarding their relation to
one another. Was it love or friendship? But she loved another man, of
whom she scarcely ever spoke. John noticed nothing in her but her eyes,
which were deep and expressive. He danced with her once, but never
again. The tie between them was certainly only friendship, and her soul
and body were virile enough to permit of a friendship existing and
continuing. A spiritual marriage can take place only between those who
are more or less sexless, and there is always something abnormal about
it. The best marriages, _i.e._, those which fulfil their real object
the best, are precisely those which are "_mal assortis_."
Antipathy, dissimilarity of views, hate, contempt, can accompany true
love. Diverse intelligences and characters can produce the best endowed
children, who inherit the qualities of both.
* * * * *
In the meantime his Confirmation approached. It had been postponed as
long as possible, in order to keep him back among the children. But the
Confirmation itself was to be used as a means of humiliating him. His
father, at the same time that he announced his decision that it should
take place, expressed the hope that the preparation for it might melt
the ice round John's heart.
So John found himself again among lower-class children. He felt
sympathy with them, but did not love them, nor could nor would be on
intimate terms with them. His education had alienated him from them, as
it had alienated him from his family.
He was again a school-boy, had to learn by heart, stand up when
questioned, and be scolded along with the rest. The assistant pastor,
who taught them, was a pietist. He looked as though he had an
infectious disease or had read Dr. Kapff. He was severe, merciless,
emotionless, without a word of grace or comfort. Choleric, irritable,
nervous, this young rustic was petted by the ladies.
He made an impression by dint of perpetual repetition. He preached
threateningly, cursed the theatre and every kind of amusement. John
and his friend resolved to alter their lives, and not to dance, go to
the theatre, or joke any more. He now infused a strong dash of pietism
into his essays, and avoided his companions in order not to hear their
frivolous stories.
"Why, you are a pietist!" one of his school-fellows said one day to him.
"Yes, I am," he answered. He would not deny his Redeemer. The school
grew intolerable to him. He suffered martyrdom there, and feared the
enticements of the world, of which he was already in some degree
conscious. He considered himself already a man, wished to go into the
world and work, earn his own living and marry. Among his other dreams
he formed a strange resolve, which was, however, not without its
reasons; he resolved to find a branch of work which was easy to learn,
would soon provide him with a maintenance, and give him a place where
he would not be the last, nor need he stand especially high--a certain
subordinate place which would let him combine an active life in the
open air with adequate pecuniary profit. The opportunity for plenty of
exercise in the open air was perhaps the principal reason why he wished
to be a subaltern in a cavalry regiment, in order to escape the fatal
twenty-fifth year, the terrors of which the pastor had described. The
prospect of wearing a uniform and riding a horse may also have had
something to do with it. He had already renounced the cadet uniform,
but man is a strange creature.
His friend strongly dissuaded him from taking such a step; she
described soldiers as the worst kind of men in existence. He stood
firm, however, and said that his faith in Christ would preserve him
from all moral contagion, yes! he would preach Christ to the soldiers
and purify them all. Then he went to his father. The latter regarded
the whole matter as a freak of imagination, and exhorted him to be
ready for his approaching final examination, which would open the whole
world to him.
A son had been born to his step-mother. John instinctively hated him as
a rival to whom his younger brothers and sisters would have to yield.
But the influence of his friend and of pietism was so strong over him,
that by way of mortifying himself he tried to love the newcomer. He
carried him on his arm and rocked him.
"Nobody saw you do it," said his step-mother later on, when he adduced
this as a proof of his goodwill. Exactly so; he did it in secret, as he
did not wish to gain credit for it, or perhaps he was ashamed of it. He
had made the sacrifice sincerely; when it became disagreeable, he gave
it up.
The Confirmation took place, after countless exhortations in the
dimly-lit chancel, and a long series of discourses on the Passion of
Christ and self-mortification, so that they were wrought up to a most
exalted mood. After the catechising, he scolded his friend whom he had
seen laughing.
On the day on which they were to receive the Holy Communion, the senior
pastor gave a discourse. It was the well-meaning counsel of a shrewd
old man to the young; it was cheering and comforting, and did not
contain threats or denunciations of past sins. Sometimes during the
sermon John felt the words fall like balm on his wounded heart, and was
convinced that the old man was right. But in the act of Communion,
he did not get the spiritual impression he had hoped for. The organ
played and the choir sang, "O Lamb of God, have mercy upon us!" The
boys and girls wept and half-fainted as though they were witnessing an
execution. But John had become too familiar with sacred things in the
parish-clerk's school. The matter seemed to him driven to the verge of
absurdity. His faith was ripe for falling. And it fell.
* * * * *
He now wore a high hat, and succeeded to his elder brother's cast-off
clothes. Now his friend with the pince-nez took him in hand. He had not
deserted him during his pietistic period. He treated the matter lightly
and good-humouredly, with a certain admiration of John's asceticism
and firm faith. But now he intervened. He took him for a mid-day
walk, pointed out by name the actors they saw at the corner of the
Regeringsgata, and the officers who were reviewing the troops. John was
still shy, and had no self-reliance.
It was about twelve o'clock, the time for going to the gymnasium.
John's friend said, "Come along! we will have lunch in the 'Three
Cups.'"
"No," said John, "we ought to go to the Greek class."
"Ah! we will dispense with Greek to-day."
It would be the first time he cut it, thought John, and he might take a
little scolding for once. "But I have no money," he said.
"That does not matter; you are my guest;" his friend seemed hurt. They
entered the restaurant. An appetising odour of beefsteaks greeted them;
the waiter received their coats and hung up their hats.
"Bring the bill of fare, waiter," said his friend in a confident tone,
for he was accustomed to take his meals here. "Will you have beefsteak?"
"Yes," answered John; he had tasted beefsteak only twice in his life.
His friend ordered butter, cheese, brandy and beer, and without asking,
filled John's glass with brandy.
"But I don't know whether I ought to," said John.
"Have you never drunk it before?"
"No."
"Oh, well, go ahead! it tastes good."
He drank. Ah! his body glowed, his eyes watered, and the room swam
in a light mist; but he felt an access of strength, his thoughts
worked freely, new ideas rose in his mind, and the gloomy past seemed
brighter. Then came the juicy beefsteak. That was something like
eating! His friend ate bread, butter, and cheese with it. John said,
"What will the restaurant-keeper say?"
His friend laughed, as if he were an elderly uncle.
"Eat away; the bill will be just the same."
"But butter and cheese with beef-steak! That is too luxurious! But it
tastes good all the same." John felt as though he had never eaten
before. Then he drank beer. "Is each of us to drink half a bottle?" he
asked his friend. "You are really mad!"
But at any rate it was a meal,--and not such an empty enjoyment either,
as anæmic ascetics assert. No, it is a real enjoyment to feel strong
blood flowing into one's half-empty veins, strengthening the nerves for
the battle of life. It is an enjoyment to feel vanished virile strength
return, and the relaxed sinews of almost perished will-power braced
up again. Hope awoke, and the mist in the room became a rosy cloud,
while his friend depicted for him the future as it is imagined by
youthful friendship. These youthful illusions about life, from whence
do they come? From superabundance of energy, people say. But ordinary
intelligence, which has seen so many childish hopes blighted, ought to
be able to infer the absurdity of expecting a realisation of the dreams
of youth.
John had not learned to expect from life anything more than freedom
from tyranny and the means of existence. That would be enough for him.
He was no Aladdin and did not believe in luck. He had plenty of power,
but did not know it. His friend had to discover him to himself.
"You should come and amuse yourself with us," he said, "and not sit in
a corner at home."
"Yes, but that costs money, and I don't get any."
"Give lessons."
"Lessons! What? Do you think I could give lessons?"
"You know a lot. You would not find it difficult to get pupils."
He knew a lot! That was a recognition or a piece of flattery, as the
pietists call it, and it fell on fertile soil.
"Yes, but I have no acquaintances or connections."
"Tell the headmaster! I did the same!"
John hardly dared to believe that he could get the chance of earning
money. But he felt strange when he heard that others could, and
compared himself with them. _They_ certainly had luck. His friend urged
him on, and soon he obtained a post as teacher in a girls' school.
Now his self-esteem awoke. The servants at home called him Mr. John,
and the teachers in the school addressed the class as "Gentlemen." At
the same time he altered his course of study at school. He had for a
long time, but in vain, asked his father to let him give up Greek. He
did it now on his own responsibility, and his father first heard of
it at the examination. In its place he substituted mathematics, after
he had learned that a Latin scholar had the right to dispense with a
testamur in that subject. Moreover, he neglected Latin, intending to
revise it all a month before the examination. During the lessons he
read French, German, and English novels. The questions were asked each
pupil in turn, and he sat with his book in his hand till the questions
came and he could be ready for them. Modern languages and natural
science were now his special subjects.
Teaching his juniors was a new and dangerous retrograde movement for
him, but he was paid for it. Naturally, the boys who required extra
lessons were those with a certain dislike of learning. It was hard
work for his active brain to accommodate himself to them. They were
impossible pupils, and did not know how to attend. He thought they
were obstinate. The truth was they lacked the will-power to become
attentive. Such boys are wrongly regarded as stupid. They are, on the
contrary, wide awake. Their thoughts are concerned with realities, and
they seem already to have seen through the absurdity of the subjects
they are taught. Many of them became useful citizens when they grew
up, and many more would have become so if they had not been compelled
by their parents to do violence to their natures and to continue their
studies.
Now ensued a new conflict with his lady friend against his altered
demeanour. She warned him against his other friend who, she
said, flattered him, and against young girls of whom he spoke
enthusiastically. She was jealous. She reminded him of Christ, but John
was distracted by other subjects, and withdrew from her society.
He now led an active and enjoyable life. He took part in evening
concerts, sang in a quartette, drank punch, and flirted moderately
with waitresses. All this time religion was in abeyance, and only a
weak echo of piety and asceticism remained. He prayed out of habit, but
without hoping for an answer, since he had so long sought the divine
friendship which people say is so easily found, if one but knocks
lightly at the door of grace. Truth to say, he was not very anxious to
be taken at his word. If the Crucified had opened the door and bidden
him enter, he would not have rejoiced. His flesh was too young and
sound to wish to be mortified.
VIII
THE SPRING THAW
The school educates, not the family. The family is too narrow; its
aims are too petty, selfish, and anti-social. In the case of a
second marriage, such abnormal relations are set up, that the only
justification of the family comes to an end. The children of a deceased
mother should simply be taken away, if the father marries again. This
would best conduce to the interests of all parties, not least to those
of the father, who perhaps is the one who suffers most in a second
marriage.
In the family there is only one (or two) ruling wills without appeal;
therefore justice is impossible. In the school, on the other hand,
there is a continual watchful jury, which rigorously judges boys as
well as teachers. The boys become more moral; brutality is tamed;
social instincts awaken; they begin to see that individual interests
must be generally furthered by means of compromises. There cannot be
tyranny, for there usually are enough to form parties and to revolt. A
teacher who is badly treated by a pupil can soonest obtain justice by
appealing to the other pupils. Moreover, about this time there was much
to arouse their sympathy in great universal interests.
During the Danish-German War of 1864 a fund was raised in the school
for the purchase of war-telegrams. These were fastened on the
blackboard and read with great interest by both teachers and pupils.
They gave rise to familiar talks and reflections on the part of the
teachers regarding the origin and cause of the war. They were naturally
all one-sidedly Scandinavian, and the question was judged from the
point of view of the students' union. Seeds of hatred towards Russia
and Germany for some future war were sown, and at the burial of the
popular teacher of gymnastics, Lieutenant Betzholtz, this reached a
fanatical pitch.
The year of the Reform Bill,[1] 1865, approached. The teacher of
history, a man of kindliness and fine feeling, and an aristocrat of
high birth, tried to interest the pupils in the subject. The class had
divided into opposite parties, and the son of a speaker in the Upper
House, a Count S., universally popular, was the chief of the opposition
against reform. He was sprung from an old German family of knightly
descent; was poor, and lived on familiar terms with his classmates, but
had a keen consciousness of his high birth. Battles more in sport than
in earnest took place in the class, and tables and forms were thrown
about indiscriminately.
The Reform Bill passed. Count S. remained away from the class.
The history teacher spoke with emotion of the sacrifice which the
nobility had laid upon the altar of the fatherland by renouncing
their privileges. The good man did not know yet that privileges are
not rights, but advantages which have been seized and which can be
recovered like other property, even by illegal means.
The teacher bade the class to be modest over their victory and not to
insult the defeated party. The young count on his return to the class
was received with elaborate courtesy, but his feelings so overcame him
at the sight of the involuntary elevation of so many pupils of humble
birth, that he burst into tears and had to leave the class again.
John understood nothing of politics. As a topic of general interest,
they were naturally banished from family discussions, where only
topics of private interest were regarded, and that in a very one-sided
way. Sons were so brought up that they might remain sons their whole
lives long, without any regard to the fact that some day they might be
fathers. But John already possessed the lower-class instinct which told
him, with regard to the Reform Bill, that now an injustice had been
done away with, and that the higher scale had been lowered, in order
that it might be easier for the lower one to rise to the same level. He
was, as might be expected, a liberal, but since the king was a liberal,
he was also a royalist.
Parallel with the strong reactionary stream of pietism ran that of the
new rationalism, but in the opposite direction. Christianity, which, at
the close of the preceding century, had been declared to be mythical,
was again received into favour, and as it enjoyed State protection,
the liberals could not prevent themselves being reinoculated by its
teaching. But in 1835 Strauss's _Life of Christ_ had made a new
breach, and even in Sweden fresh water trickled into the stagnant
streams. The book was made the subject of legal action, but upon it
as a foundation the whole work of the new reformation was built up by
self-appointed reformers, as is always the case.
Pastor Cramer had the honour of being the first. As early as 1859
he published his _Farewell to the Church_, a popular but scientific
criticism of the New Testament. He set the seal of sincerity on his
belief by seceding from the State Church and resigning his office. His
book produced a great effect, and although Ingell's writings had more
vogue among the theologians, they did not reach the younger generation.
In the same year appeared Rydberg's _The Last Athenian_. The influence
of this book was hindered by the fact that it was hailed as a literary
success, and transplanted to the neutral territory of belles-lettres.
Ryllberg's _The Bible Doctrine of Christ_ made a deeper impression.
Renan's _Life of Jesus_ in Ignell's translation had taken young and old
by storm, and was read in the schools along with Cramer, which was not
the case with _The Bible Doctrine of Christ_. And by Boström's attack
on the _Doctrine of Hell_ (1864), the door was opened to rationalism
or "free-thought," as it was called. Boström's really insignificant
work had a great effect, because of his fame as a Professor at Upsala
and former teacher in the Royal Family. The courageous man risked his
reputation, a risk which no one incurred after him, when it was no
longer considered an honour to be a free-thinker or to labour for the
freedom and the right of thinking.
In short, everything was in train, and it needed only a breath to blow
down John's faith like a house of cards. A young engineer crossed his
path. He was a lodger in the house of John's female friend. He watched
John a long while before he made any approaches. John felt respect for
him, for he had a good head, and was also somewhat jealous. John's
friend prepared him for the acquaintance he was likely to make, and
at the same time warned him. She said the engineer was an interesting
man of great ability, but dangerous. It was not long before John met
him. He hailed from Wermland, was strongly built, with coarse, honest
features, and a childlike laugh, when he did laugh, which occurred
rarely. They were soon on familiar terms. The first evening only a
slight skirmish took place on the question of faith and knowledge.
"Faith must kill reason," said John (echoing Krummacher). "No," replied
his friend. "Reason is a divine gift, which raises man above the
brutes. Shall man lower himself to the level of the brutes by throwing
away this divine gift?"
"There are things," said John (echoing Norbeck), "which we can very
well believe, without demanding a proof for them. We believe the
calendar, for example, without possessing a scientific knowledge of the
movement of the planets."
"Yes," answered his friend, "we believe it, because our reason does not
revolt against it."
"But," said John, "in Galileo's time they revolted against the idea
that the earth revolves round the sun. 'He is possessed by a spirit of
contradiction,' they said, 'and wishes to be thought original.'"
"We don't live in Galileo's age," returned his friend, "and the
enlightened reason of our time rejects the Deity of Christ and
everlasting punishment."
"We won't dispute about these things," said John.
"Why not?"
"They are out of the reach of reason."
"Just what I said two years ago when I was a believer."
"You have been----a pietist?"
"Yes."
"Hm! and now you have peace?"
"Yes, I have peace."
"How is that?"
"I learned through a preacher to realise the spirit of true
Christianity."
"You are a Christian then?"
"Yes, I acknowledge Christ."
"But you don't believe that he was God?"
"He never said so himself. He called himself God's son, and we are all
God's sons."
John's lady friend interrupted the conversation, which was a type of
many others in the year 1865. John's curiosity was aroused. There were
then, he said to himself, men who did not believe in Christ and yet had
peace. Mere criticism would not have disturbed his old ideas of God;
the "horror vacui" held him back, till Theodore Parker fell into his
hands. Sermons without Christ and hell were what he wanted. And fine
sermons they were. It must be confessed that he read them in extreme
haste, as he was anxious that his friends and relatives should enjoy
them that he might escape their censures. He could not distinguish
between the disapproval of others and his own bad conscience, and was
so accustomed to consider others right that he fell into conflict with
himself.
But in his mind the doctrine of Christ the Judge, the election of
grace, the punishments of the last day, all collapsed, as though they
had been tottering for a long time. He was astonished at the rapidity
of their disappearance. It was as though he laid aside clothes he had
outgrown and put on new ones.
One Sunday morning he went with the engineer to the Haga Park. It was
spring. The hazel bushes were in bloom, and the anemones were opening.
The weather was fairly clear, the air soft and mild after a night's
rain. He and his friend discussed the freedom of the will. The pietists
had a very wavering conception of the matter. No one had, they said,
the power to become a child of God of his own free will. The Holy
Spirit must seek one, and thus it was a matter of predestination. John
wished to be converted but he could not. He had learned to pray, "Lord,
create in me a new will." But how could he be held responsible for his
evil will? Yes, he could, answered the pietist, through the Fall, for
when man endowed with free will chose the evil, his posterity inherited
his evil will, which became perpetually evil and ceased to be free.
Man could be delivered from this evil will only through Christ and
the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. The New Birth, however, did not
depend upon his own will, but on the grace of God. Thus he was not free
and at the same time was responsible! Therein lay the false inference.