Chapter Eight
Brorson's Childhood and Youth
Hans Adolph Brorson came from Schleswig, the border province between
Denmark and Germany which for centuries has constituted a battleground
between the two countries and cost the Danes so much in blood and tears.
His family was old in the district and presented an unbroken line of
substantial farmers until his grandfather, Broder Pedersen, broke it by
studying for the ministry and becoming pastor at Randrup, a small country
parish on the west coast of the province.
Broder Pedersen remained at Randrup till his death in 1646, and was then
succeeded by his son, Broder Brodersen, a young man only twenty-three
years old, who shortly before his installation had married Catherine
Margaret Clausen, a daughter of the manager of Trojborg manor, the estate
to which the church at Randrup belonged. Catherine Clausen bore her
husband three sons, Nicolaj Brodersen, born July 23, 1690, Broder
Brodersen, born September 12, 1692, and Hans Adolph Brodersen--or
Brorson--as his name was later written--born June 20, 1694.
Broder Brodersen was a quiet, serious-minded man, anxious to give his
boys the best possible training for life. Although his income was small,
he managed somehow to provide private tutors for them. Both he and his
wife were earnest Christians, and the fine example of their own lives was
no doubt of greater value to their boys than the formal instruction they
received from hired teachers. Thus an early biographer of the Brorsons
writes: "Their good parents earnestly instructed their boys in all that
was good, but especially in the fear and knowledge of God. Knowing that a
good example is more productive of good than the best precept, they were
not content with merely teaching them what is good, but strove earnestly
to live so that their own daily lives might present a worthy pattern for
their sons to follow."
Broder Brodersen was not granted the privilege of seeing his sons attain
their honored manhood. He died in 1704, when the eldest of them was
fourteen and the youngest only ten years old. Upon realizing that he must
leave them, he is said to have comforted himself with the words of Kingo:
If for my children I
Would weep and sorrow
And every moment cry:
Who shall tomorrow
With needful counsel, home and care provide them?
The Lord still reigns above,
He will with changeless love
Sustain and guide them.
Nor was the faith of the dying pastor put to shame. A year after his
death, his widow married his successor in the pastorate, Pastor Ole
Holbeck, who proved himself a most excellent stepfather to his adopted
sons.
Reverend Holbeck personally taught the boys until Nicolaj, and a year
later, Broder and Hans Adolph were prepared to enter the Latin school at
Ribe. This old and once famous school was then in a state of decay. The
town itself had declined from a proud city, a favored residence of kings
and nobles, to an insignificant village of about fifteen hundred
inhabitants. Of its former glory only a few old buildings and,
especially, the beautiful cathedral still remained. And the Latin school
had shared the fate of the city. Its once fine buildings were decaying;
its faculty, which in former times included some of the best known
savants of the country, was poorly paid and poorly equipped; and the
number of its students had shrunk from about 1200 to less than a score.
Only the course of study remained unchanged from the Middle Ages. Latin
and religion were still the main subjects of instruction. It mattered
little if the student could neither speak nor write Danish correctly, but
he must be able to define the finest points in a Latin grammar of more
than 1200 pages. Attendance at religious services was compulsory; but the
services were cold and spiritless, offering little attraction to an
adolescent youth.
The boys completed their course at Ribe and entered the university of
Copenhagen, Nicolaj in the fall of 1710 and the younger brothers a year
later. But the change offered them little improvement. The whole country
suffered from a severe spiritual decline. Signs of an awakening were here
and there, but not at the university where Lutheran orthodoxy still
maintained its undisputed reign of more than a hundred years, though it
had now become more dry and spiritless than ever.
The brothers all intended to prepare for the ministry. But after two
years Nicolaj for various reasons left the University of Copenhagen to
complete his course at the University of Kiel. Broder remained at
Copenhagen, completing his course there in the spring of 1715. Hans
Adolph studied for three years more and, even then, failed to complete
his course.