# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1858_S267
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Church of Norway. 267

youth-writings that have come [into currency]. Wildenhahn's Lebensbilder
[Life-pictures] finds many readers.

Among older writings the following have been published: Luther's Church and
House Postil; Heinr. Müller's Erquickstunden [Hours of Refreshment] and
Himmlischer Liebeskuß [Heavenly Kiss of Love]; Joh. Arnd's books on true
Christianity; Mathesius' Luther's Life in Sermons; Fresenius' Communion Book;
individual writings by Richard Barter, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress;
Savonarola's Meditations on the 51st and 31st Psalms; Thomas à Kempis in two
different editions by Wexels and Koefod. — A new edition of Scriver's
Seelenschatz [Treasury of the Soul], unaltered and unabridged, recommended by
Lector Johnson, has found a considerable number of subscribers.

I think one cannot fairly complain of one-sidedness.

Among the original works there are found, besides polemical writings on
questions of the day, collections of sermons, treatments of the Lutheran
catechism, of biblical history, and of church history, etc.

5. Measures for the improvement of moral conditions. As such must here be
mentioned the temperance cause. In Norway too, brandy-drinking has ruled and
still rules to a great extent. So, in order to set a check to this evil, here
too the means have been seized upon of winning the people over to abstinence
from brandy. The temperance cause had a personal representative in King
Oscar, who promoted it already as crown prince in Sweden.

Alongside this there exists a prohibition, intended at the same time to
restrain the desecration of the holy day, that — if I am not mistaken — no
brandy may be sold from Saturday afternoon until Monday forenoon. To be sure,
it appears here too that outward measures alone cannot accomplish too much.
Complaint was made by some persons that people now indulge to excess in beer
instead of brandy.

From all that has been related only this much emerges: that in the Norwegian
national church there is found a circle which has turned toward the Gospel,
and that not among the clergy alone, but also among the "lay people," where
members of the most various ranks belong to it. This circle takes a decided
stand against everything it regards as belonging to spiritual death, to
unbelief, to the world and sin. Such a separation, so far as it keeps within
right measure, has indeed its unquestionable right, so long as the commands
to let one's light shine and not to conform oneself to the world hold good
for the Christian. If we compare this circle with the mass of the people, it
is admittedly a decided minority. A great part of the people lives in
complete indifference to spiritual questions, and belongs to the church
almost thoughtlessly and unconsciously. In many, sins that lie open to the
day testify to an unbelieving and unchristian state of heart; a like
testimony is given by the pleasure-seeking that widely prevails. Open
unbelief, too, has its representatives, and though it does not always