# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S259
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Church of Norway. 259

they therefore consider it a matter of conscience to visit friendly circles in admonition and edification. Meanwhile, this "Haugean party" in the narrower sense is probably not the chief result of Hauge's work; it may well disappear altogether, but even if it no longer existed, Hauge's preaching would not for that reason have been without effect. The main thing is the religious stirring that went out from him as a whole, and that is so far from being over that, as already mentioned, the awareness of it is still alive in wide circles.

One particular monument of "Haugean activity" may find mention here, the Josephine Institute in Stavanger, an asylum and an institution of instruction and upbringing for girls, founded from freely given gifts of love. At the time of my visit there were 24 children in it, whose appearance, like the whole arrangement of the institution, made a gratifying impression.

The age of the old so-called Rationalismus vulgaris is probably a thing of the past for Norway as well, even though its after-effects and aftermath are still perceptible, even though the complaints, heard here and there, about weak, deficient, feeble proclamation of the Word — which, for all its appearance of churchly orthodoxy, still harbors much of the old leaven — may not everywhere be without grounds, and even though opposition and hostility toward the new stirring of life show themselves among clergy and people. The church stands in a process of fermentation and development which, for all that troubles and disturbs it, can still take a gratifying course. At the very least the state church, which is what is meant here in the first instance, has much that secures for it a flourishing development, and there are found many signs of life that testify to a striving for the development and strengthening of its life.

Of great significance is the university, as the training-ground of the future servants of the church, and it may be mentioned here too, as a fact of importance for the Norwegian church, that the theological faculty stands on a decidedly churchly, believing footing, and is united in this. One of its members, Professor Caspari, is known also in his native land, Germany, as a learned exegete of the Old Testament on the one hand, and on the other as devoted from the heart to the confession of the Lutheran church. It was, after all, his aversion to the Union that frustrated his appointment in Prussia. His relationship to the students is a very gratifying one; he draws them into a confidential relationship with himself, has a stimulating effect on them, and enjoys a heartfelt love and attachment. I myself was witness to the joyful impression made by his decision to remain in Norway and decline the call to Erlangen.

Alongside C. works Lector Gisle Johnson, teacher of systematic theology, a man distinguished by decisiveness, by a sympathy — springing from a heart of living faith — for the weal and woe