30. Hauge's Practical Sense & Eker Paper Mill

HAUGE’S PRACTICAL SENSE.

Also in temporal respects Hauge was of great benefit to his compatriots. His activity brought about a whole movement in the life of the people. Farmers went to towns and established business houses, poor people moved to places where it was easier to procure arable land, etc.


EKER PAPER MILL

One of the largest constructions which was brought about by Hauge’s initiative, was Eker Paper Mill. He had received the idea for this construction in Copenhagen. In the vicinity he had seen one and had familiarized himself with similar arrangements. Several had shares in this enterprise, and Hauge helped with word and deed. Forty people worked here. Besides the paper mill they also operated a stamping mill, a bone-grinding machine, a flour and fanning mill and a tannery. The owners maintained joint housekeeping; workers and employers felt like a big family; they ate in fellowship at a long table which reached from wall to wall in a large room. According to the desire of the heart one prayed before the meal, and another offered the thanks after the meal. Here was practical devotion and an unusual hospitality. Here the friends sought refuge, and not the least during the years of distress was “the mill” a true resting place for the tired. A wonderful strong Christian life flourished at Eker Paper Mill and the Communion of Saints revealed itself in a very lovely manner.

Hauge traveled around over almost the whole of Norway, preached, spread devotional books and won friends and made enemies. In temporal respects he also, as mentioned before, was to great advantage and benefit to his people. But in the fall of 1804 the magistrate laid his hand upon him and stopped his useful and beneficial activity. He was arrested and put in a penitentiary in the capital, where he languished in a dismal prison for 10 years. It was the clergy who were his worst enemies, and they rejoiced when they had him imprisoned, that they got rid of this “troublemaker.” Bishop Hansen was the worst of all to accuse the good man, misrepresent established truths and put everything in the worst light.

The conduct of those churchmen against Hauge is reminiscent of the Catholic church’s treatment of the noble martyrs in the dark medieval ages. But in the light of eternity it will look quite different; then we shall find these tormentors in hell, while those whom they have tormented rest with God. Then this truth will tell to full advantage: “Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things and be the evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou are tormented.”
This imprisonment brings to a conclusion Hauge’s activity as revival preacher in the Norwegian church. And who has brought about that Hauge was imprisoned? None other than the said Bishop Hansen. He submitted a complaint against Hauge and his friends to one of the royal chancellery in Copenhagen, and in this he even compared these quiet men of peace with revolutionary Muhamedan Abdul Vechab!

This complaint had its effect. It brought about a writ from the chancellery, which obtained the largest, distribution, each and all of the legal and ecclesiastical officers were set in motion, partly to give new information about Hauge’s dangerous activity, partly to suggest, suitable means to counteract and check the same. For more than a year superior and inferior officers around the whole country racked their brains and pondered over how the “Haugian poison” again could be rendered harmless among the people. The reports on this case, which are lodged with the National Archive, give an unusually distressing picture of this time, especially concerning the rude mode of thought, which prevailed in the so-called cultured circles, and of the disposition of the clergy who eagerly seized the opportunity to pour out their bile over this tormentor and in all ways they exaggerated the produced charges against him, which had its foundation in the most scandalous, loose rumors. Also the books of the persecuted were searched for all over, and not only sale, but also possession was prohibited, and if any were found they were seized and in several places destroyed. People still will tell about some of Hauge’s books, which neither fire nor water was able to ruin.

It should not be forgotten that many of these from all sides who gathered evidences of the accused layman, also gave the truth honor, and blessed Hauge and the activity he had conducted, yes, made it a duty for the magistrate to stop the many impious gatherings instead of the Haugian. It is known that not few of those pastors who were inclined towards Herrnhutism, praised Hauge’s genuine evangelical zeal, without thinking of the difference in the teaching. But especially Bishop Brun gave Hauge and his followers a fine testimony for piety, decency and an industrious life, and censured sharply the injustices, which often were committed against them. Only the “mercantile enterprises and purchase of property...” which he erroneously presumed, was derived from a community of property-he feels he must recommend to the attention of the magistrate, so that these or those should not have to suffer a loss!

As to the means which the great majority recommended against the enthusiasm, they were such as one might expect from people with a rationalistic conception; one should especially apply the penal law in its full severity against the lay preachers and not the proper weapon of the spirit to conviction and guidance.

We will again turn our eyes to the man on whom state and church used every effort to render harmless. Several of the richest men in the county, where Hauge was arrested, asked the bailiff to set him free right away on bail, but in vain. The imprisoned man himself, however, reported at once to his friends what had taken place, in a communication which from beginning to end gives evidence of a spirit who rests in God, and whose strength is the Lord. He wished that “the chains which he carried for the love he bore to them, would stimulate them to seek the Lord still more keenly and become living limbs on the body of Christ. He was prepared to suffer to the utmost: God would grant him strength, when he contemplated the love of Christ and thought of what he had to suffer for us; some day the sufferings of all Christians will be converted to great glory and eternal freedom.”

For more than a month he was imprisoned in Haugesund; he was now in the fullest sense alone with his God, whose work he had faithfully carried out. At that time originated “Prayer for the Christian Church,” which he had written. It does not carry a trace of bitterness, but is much more suffused of the warmest love.

At last there came a warrant to transport the "most dangerous fanatic Hauge" to Christiania. In a short letter the layman bids adieu to his friends, admonishes them earnestly to let all carnal zeal drop and expresses the hope to meet them again in the eternal life.

The 24th of November, 1804, he was committed to the jail of the police office in Christiania, which, according to the opinion of the contemporaries, was the old police office of Christiania, in Raadhusgaten No.7.

He was sternly forbidden any association with others. On the 16th of November, 1804, it had been decided that a committee of investigation composed of two officials should be appointed. But both resigned as soon as possible, and new men had to step in. Months went by before an official inquiry over the pursued person began, and the numerous witnesses were summoned. The record of evidence, which still is preserved, shows that they proceeded anything but kindly against the prisoner. The questions started according to the most ordinary and weak assumptions. The different authorities around the whole country were also forwarded questions to be answered, and requested to hold special examinations. These reports came in slowly in the course of a year, and contained partly such pure inventions that a writer of history says: “Many of the officials deserve to sit in prison, and not Hauge.” Only after the layman had breathed in Christiania prison air and suffered much for over three years, was the main inquiry concluded the 8th of January, 1808. Another year passed before the government in the midst of this time of war gave signs of life. The 5th of May, 1809, the same men who had conducted the inquiries, and who beforehand were Hauge’s opponents, were appointed as legitimate judges to investigate and settle his case. They should have with them a public prosecutor and a counsel for the defense. The latter felt induced to set on foot new inquiries in the counties. The evidence now incoming reads almost invariably very favorable about Hauge’s friends as about himself.

Some expressed, however, their fear that this movement might prove harmful in civil life. Gradually, though, a better spirit prevailed. The time passed with production of evidence and inquiry until the beginning of 1813. Then more than 600 witnesses were examined, and not until the 4th of December of the last mentioned year the commissioned assembled to the preliminary judgment conference. Although he was acquitted from all moral accusations, Hauge was, however, sentenced to two years of hard labor and also to pay all costs of the proceedings:

1) Because he had held conventicles (edification gatherings).

2) Because of opposing the rationalistic clergy (in a general sense).

3) Because he had brought people into religious brooding.

But when his case in the latter part of the year 1814 was handed over to the judgment of the superior court of justice, this court acquitted Hauge on all points after his ten years in prison. For the before-mentioned opposition against the clergy he was only to pay a fine.

Ten years imprisonment, mostly in deep solitude, were behind him. About all this time he was removed from the outer world. Years went by, but no one was allowed to talk to him except the magistrate. It is told that one of his friends from the Bergen diocese, right after his imprisonment, went to Christiania to talk to him, his spiritual father, but this was denied him. Distressed he stood outside the house of detention and stared in. Then Hauge happened to see him and stepped over to the window and lighted a candle, held it up and trimmed it, so it could shine brighter. It was a silent and still expressive greeting to the friend and a sign to let the light shine for the people and cleanse the temporal desires. The traveler felt himself exalted in a high degree by this sign language and went home happy. Another time when Hauge saw one of his friends walk up and down outside the prison, he sang this hymn out through the prison bars: “Watchful Jesus without slumber, with much labor, strife and grief,” etc. Thus some words and signs made their way out of the prison anyway. Later Count Moltke allowed one of Hauge’s brothers and another of his nearest to visit him, though only in the presence of the jailer. It is outrageous how they treated him. That he for five shillings a day had to keep himself with food, laundry, etc., was the least. Worse it was that this man, who was used to motion and activity, had to spend days and nights within narrow walls. The first year he sat in the cellar of the prison; several of his teeth loosened and fell out, and he caught a host of diseases, which already in the course of the first year ruined his previously strong health. But the most terrible of all was, however, that it seemed that they would kill his soul also. No work, no book, no stationery should gladden him. How, then, could the distress of mind fail to appear?

It was also a deep grief for the noble man to be convinced that also the highest authorities of the country were his opponents, yes opposed even the Lord. Then there arose a doubt within him, if God really was on his side when his king was against him! The consciousness of his inner calling was deeply shaken, and as he had to be without any brotherly encouragement, his soul suffered beyond expression. For two years they gave him books to read, to be sure, but what kind of books were they? Yes, it was publications of mockery and rationalistic books, which should cleanse his conceptions of religion and instill into him the eulogized education of the time! In his depressed loneliness he reached for everything which was offered him. He swallowed translations of Voltaire’s publications with a quantity of other productions of the spirit of the age, of moral, philosophical and legal contents. Later he himself has publicly confessed that although the disbelieving books did not blind him, still in those years his inner life declined considerably. “I preserved in my soul that light, which originated with the pint of God, and the Word and the power from above.” His phraseology became no doubt considerably more exact, but the contents lost much; he used words and expressions which reminded one strongly of the rationalistic books he read.

His confinement was in a remarkable way interrupted for about nine months. From February to October, 1809, he was in consequence of higher orders a free man. During the time of the war the coast of Norway was namely blockaded by English battleships, and the supply of provisions was therewith stopped. Chiefly the lack of salt became very serious. Then Hauge offered to help the government which so shamefully had locked him up, and, as no one else was able to render timely help, they were impudent enough to accept the offer. They knew that he, with his exceedingly practical aptitude, also could help and was able to promote the domestic salt making, so they in this respect could be independent of foreign countries. Thereafter this man, tormented by prison and sickness, was released on 1000 “riksdaler” bail, and furnished with those aids he deemed necessary for his undertaking. He then examined the water at the coast, and due to his knowledge and energy several saltworks were established, and with the best results. When he had finished, in appreciation of his devoted and generous work for the good of his country, he was again put in prison. Such treatment can be called by only one name-and that is-barbarism. However, from this time on his treatment in prison became considerably better, through the influence of a protector. In order to strengthen his health, he was permitted from now on to take several short trips, and among others to visit his old parents, whom he then saw for the last time. He also obtained much more liberty and could in a “rapid” in Akerselven even constrnct a flour mill which is still in operation and was to great benefit for many.

Just as in his outer position, there occurred also in the last years of his imprisonment a joyful change in his inner life. Many circumstances contributed to that. The memory of the revival’s flourishing period was refreshing and cheery to him. In the fall of 1810 he became ill and felt near death. This merciful visit contributed much to again strengthen his spiritual life and anew excite the fervency of the spirit. And after the sacred Scriptures again had become the daily nourishment for his soul, the inner fountain also began to gush anew to awakening and edification for others. Of this some faithful Christmas, Passion and Easter songs, which he wrote during this time, bear testimony.

It was in the morning of the 23rd day of December, 1814, that Hauge, with a calm and resigned mind went from Bakkehaugen at Sagene down to Christiania to receive that sentence which is unique in the Norwegian history of law. “What good are those many papers now, on which many worked themselves tired and bothered me with about 600 questions and examined just as many witnesses in the hope to be able to establish a case of penal vices on me? God be eternally praised, who has preserved me from vices, an consequently they found nothing but the practice in God’s Word and those books I had written, to which my own witness was enough, as I said I had written them. In my anxiety, when the opponents roared over me and I was at their mercy, I prayed that the Lord would take care of my mission. I promised to praise Him when I was saved, and this 1 would do; He Himself would give me grace for that purpose. Igreet thee in Jesus’ name and pray that thou may live well in all eternity, remaining the friend in the Lord.” This he wrote in a circular letter to his friends. His venerable father should not see the day of his son’s discharge. He passed away in the faith January 10th, 1813.

Hauge, who before had been a strong and healthy man, left the prison sick in his body, whose many aches and pains stayed with him to his dying day. That he himself became a ruined man, and that his honestly acquired possessions were lost, grieved him less than that his friends had also suffered considerable losses.

Until the year 1817 he lived at Bakkehaugen, which his brother had left him to leasehold. Here he constructed several buildings and. made useful improvements which are still there, and gained rapidly in wealth. During the years of war he gave maintenance to hundreds and put many to work. He went assiduously among them and spoke the Word of Life to them.

In the year 1817 he bought near the farm Bredtvedt near Christiania, where he stayed the last years of his life. Here he lived very quietly, but was commonly respected and loved both for his practical ability and Christian zeal. Because of his broken health he could not take longer journeys, but worked anyway in many ways to the blessing of many.

In the year 1815 he married an orphaned girl who had been awakened through him several years before. This union was of short duration, however, for before the year was out she departed in the faith from this life. She left a son, Andreas Hauge, who was the warm mission friend and zealous minister in Skien.

In the year 1817 he married again. This union was blessed with three children, all of whom died young.

Hauge is supposed to have had a singular power over people’s disposition in his last years. There were told many stories of how he, with characteristic mixing of friendliness and seriousness, had drawn several of his servants into the Christian routine of his house, so they enjoyed prayer and work equally well.

Meanwhile, he had become an esteemed man in the upper circle of society, and tradition has kept remembrance of visits from many prominent men. It is of far greater consequence, however, that the farm, Bredtvedt, became the center for the Christian life in Norway. Numerous letters were sent from here all over the country. What influence Hauge’s “religious letters” had upon the people at that time, one can at the present day hardly imagine. And large crowds poured in to Bredtvedt year in and year out. The old ones, who once through the admonishing words of Hauge became changed people, would see the spiritual father once more, fathers in Christ, who in former days had worked with him for the propagation of the Kingdom of God, wanted their sons to hear an admonishing word from him whose testimony had had such a wonderful power. Traveling lay-preachers also went there as often as possible. Even when Hauge was sick in bed, they could hear a word which was of great worth to them, like gold and silver. But hen he was fairly well, he always performed devotions for those present. After Hauge came out of prison he expanded a considerable authorship. And these publications from his last years achieve distinction above the older works by the clarity of thought and expression.

The ten years’ imprisonment gave plenty occasion for self-examination and quiet contemplation, combined with the Christian books he read during this time, strengthened and mellowed him in several ways. These works of his have the character of an experienced, tranquil and level-headed man, who from year to year grew in regard to the inner man. On the other hand, one seeks in vain both the bubbling life which is peculiar in his earlier publications, and the prominent fighting grit and that intense fervency of the spirit, which characterized his youthful work.

It was great joy for him to live to see that over most of the counties in Norway there blew a blessed pentecostal wind which swept away the miserable wisdom of rationalism. At the young university the sound Lutheran teaching was recited with life and warmth, and gradually there proceeded from this group of young churchmen who testified with life and energy of the salvation in Christ for the Norwegian people around the whole country.

When Hauge was not bedridden he lived outdoors. One could often see this stoop-shouldered figure with the yellowish pale face wander over the fields at Bredtvedt. Then he usually had his little son with him and showed him the flowers and talked to him about God’s virtue and love. And many who saw how he suffered first from one illness, and then from another, said to themselves: “This you have suffered and suffer for Christ’s sake.”

However, his last years were somewhat darkened by the thought that many a discord would break out among his old friends after his departure, chiefly concerning the relation to the state church ‘whose patient and faithful servant he had always been.

Gradually his health became so poor that he seldom could leave the bed. He felt the end was near; therefore he wrote his “Testament to his friends,” which was reprinted several times and received wide circulation. It is rich in advice and guidance for his friend and has a sound, Lutheran and ecclesiastical impression. His time of redemption grew nearer. In the spring of 1824 he stayed in bed continually for 14 days. One Sunday morning he had such a violent spasm in his chest that he could not talk at all the whole day and the following night. But it seemed as though he wanted to say something to those around, so his wife cried out: “Oh, if I only could understand you!” And in a clear voice the dying man said: “Follow Jesus!” And right thereafter he called out joyfully: “Oh, you eternally loving God!” When his wife said: “Now He will surely soon take you unto Him,” he said: “Yes! pray with me!” Then the Lord came and took his faithful and tired servant with Him. He died Monday, the 24th of March, 1824, t 5 o’clock in the morning, only 55 years old. His grave is in “Gamle Aker” cemetery, where his friends have erected a memorial stone over him. Around the whole country thousands mourned; they had in the deceased lost a spiritual father, brother and friend.

But the ecclesiastical history in times to come will not be able to omit this farmer boy and the great revival which he had caused, and which brought about a spiritual spring with new life after the dark and cold winter of rationalism. It could now also be said about the Norwegian church: “The old is gone, see everything has become new.” Thinking of Hauge, we will finally be reminded of the following text in Scripture:

“The base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.”

To Be Continued.....