# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S257
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume IV.    September 1858.    No. 9.

The Church of Norway.*)

At the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, Norway too had to pass through a period in which rationalism ravaged the church. The union of the country with Denmark, the training of the clergy at the university in Copenhagen, which was very strongly infected by German influences, and intercourse with foreign lands through shipping and trade allowed the new spirit of the age to find its way even into the remote country and its congregations, hidden in part in the mountains. How far these effects extended cannot, to be sure, be established with certainty, and it is to be hoped that the devastation reached no such height, either in extent or in intensity, as perhaps in Germany and in Denmark itself. But it was bad enough even so, and that the spirit of the age must also have had a paralyzing effect on those who still held to evangelical doctrine — of that we in Germany have experience enough from that time.

Yet in Norway too a counter-movement set in early. The political separation from Denmark withdrew it to a considerable degree from that country's influence; to the new university at Christiania came two men, Stenersen and Hersleb, as teachers, who held fast, believingly, to biblical truth, and so helped bring it about that a new generation of young clergy grew up who in turn began to proclaim the Gospel of Christ. The names of those two men stand in good memory not only among theologians, but were also named to me with great respect by a good many laypeople. Among the clergy, W. A. Wexels, resident chaplain at Christiania, deserves mention — to my knowledge the first who, in the capital, preached the Gospel calmly and decidedly, and who, despite all scorn — he is said at first even to have often been greeted with hissing and whistling — held fast to it with all faithfulness. He has, moreover, worked not only as a zealous and conscientious pastor to the blessing of many souls, and continues to do so, but also as a writer. Among other things he has published two solid collections of sacred hymns, several devotional writings, and also a pastoral theology. Just now he is probably the most widely heard preacher, and even opponents of his churchly direction cannot deny him their respect.

*) In communicating this interesting report, it hardly needs remarking that we are not in a position to judge whether it is throughout correct in its depiction of the state of the church in Norway. G. S.