26. Hauge's Journey To Bergen

HAUGE’S JOURNEY TO BERGEN.

Hauge’s mind had no rest. He had to get around with the heavenly message. First he went to Drammen, where his friend merchant M. Møller secured shipping opportunity to Bergen for him. In this town Hauge found a better reception, and the pursuers had to leave him in peace as the mighty man Bishop Nordal Brun took the layman under his protection, and he was more than a match for the pursuers.

Bishop Brun was like a shining star in the deep night. He was a true believer, punished the sin and waged a worthy contest against the dark and disconsolate teaching of rationalism. His hymns gave evidence that Christian experience was not foreign to him. Some hymns have become very dear and indispensable to the Norwegian congregations. But as a child of his age, he could, on his standard of culture, not fully appreciate Hauge’s activity. He perceived much good in “pietism,” but he also saw in it a repulsive enthusiasm.

In Bergen there was a great stir, but also much impiety and spiritual death. A few Christian elements were found, however, who became points of connection for Hauge’s activity. Among these may be mentioned the God-fearing maid Maren Boes, who in her younger days had been housekeeper for Bishop Pontoppidan and Samson Traae, who through Hauge’s teaching came to peace with God. Traae traveled far as lay-preacher.

Hauge wrote two books which he published in Bergen, and preached the Word of God around in the homes. He won both friends and enemies; but the seed was sown, and it found soil and bore fruit.

After four months’ stay in Bergen, Hauge went southward again. He went through Stavanger, over Jæren along the seashore, and everywhere on his way he spread his publications and admonished his fellow men to conversion.

After having visited friends in different places, he finally returned home from his trip to Bergen.

He had often run the risk of being persecuted; “iron and jail” were in store for him in many places, but he had luckily escaped all pitfalls; sometimes the pursuers took the wrong road, sometimes they “were smitten with blindness so they didn’t know him,” sometimes he hid himself in one house or another, and sometimes his pursuers came too late-after he already had left. Once he escaped almost in the same way as Paul, when the latter was hoisted over the wall in Damascus. “Then I had much to endure,” he writes, “if I did it from fear of suffering and couldn’t bear it unto the blood for the honor of God and for the sake of the chosen ones, but felt just the same, that it was nothing else, but the time was not ripe, and I should still silently spread the honor of God.”

To Be Continued....