le of discovering the
truth without the light of the Gospel, and so faith has died. My
Brethren!" he exclaims, "Let us not, if we share this blindness and
contempt for the heavenly light, be false and shameless enough to
desecrate the Holy Place by appearing there as preachers of a
Christianity in which we ourselves do not believe!"

The sermon was delivered with much force and eloquence. Grundtvig felt
himself stirred by the strength of his own argument; and a comparison of
the warm devotional spirit of a church service, as he remembered it from
his childhood, with the cold indifference of later days moved him to
sentimental tears, the first pious tears that he had shed for many years,
he said later. Even the censors were so impressed that they unanimously
awarded him the mark of excellent, a generosity they bitterly regretted a
few weeks later. For Grundtvig, contrary to his promise--as the censors
asserted but Grundtvig denied--published his sermon. And it was warmly
received by the Evangelicals as the first manna that had fallen in a
desert for many years. But the Rationalists violently condemned it and
presented the Committee on Church Affairs with an indignant protest
against its author "for having grossly insulted the Danish clergy."

Considering the enthusiastic approval the sermon had received in various
quarters, the committee would gladly have squashed the complaint. But the
complainers, comprising many of the most influential pastors in the city,
were too powerful to be ignored. And so Grundtvig was found guilty "of
having willfully insulted the Danish clergy, both individually and as a
body," and sentenced to receive a reprimand by the dean of the
theological faculty.

When Grundtvig on January 11, 1811, presented himself before the dean to
receive his reprimand, he looked so pale and shaken that even the worthy
official took compassion upon him and advised him privately that he must
not take his sentence too seriously. It was not, however, the stern
reprimand of the dean but an experience of far greater consequence that
so visibly blanched the cheeks of the defendant.

The prospect of entering the active ministry caused Grundtvig to examine
seriously his own attitude toward Christianity. And although the bishop
vetoed his assignment to Udby and thus released him from the immediate
prospect of entering the pulpit, this did not stop the trend of his
thoughts. He had lost his former indifference toward rel