s of existence, of God and man, of good and evil, of
life and death. And all other conceptions of his intuitive and
far-reaching spirit were consistently correlated to these basic beliefs.

Bishop H. Martensen, the celebrated theologian, relates an illuminating
conversation between Grundtvig and the German theologian, P. K.
Marheincke, during a visit which the Bishop had arranged between the two
men. Dr. Marheincke commenced a lengthy discourse on the great opposites
in life, as for instance between thinking and being, and Grundtvig
replied, "My opposites are life and death" (Mein Gegensatz ist Leben und
Tod).

"The professor accepted my statement somewhat dubiously," Grundtvig said
later, "and admitted that that was indeed a great contrast, but--" The
difference between the two men no doubt lay in the fact that Prof.
Marheincke, the speculative theologian, was principally interested in the
first part of the assumed contrast--thinking, whereas Grundtvig's main
concern was with the last--being, existence, life. In real life there
could be no more fundamental, no farther reaching contrast than the
continuous and irreconcilable difference between life and death. The
thought of this contrast lies at the root of all his thinking and colors
all his views. From the day of his conversion until the hour of his
death, his one consuming interest was to illuminate the contrast between
the two irreconcilable enemies and to encourage anything that would
strengthen the one and defeat the other.

Grundtvig loved life in all its highest aspects and implications, and he
hated death under whatever form he saw it. "Life is from heaven, death is
from hell," he says in a characteristic poem. The one is representative
of all the good the Creator intended for his creatures, the other of all
the evil, frustration and destruction the great destroyer brought into
the world. There can be no reconciliation or peace between the two, the
one must inevitably destroy or be destroyed by the other. He could see
nothing but deception in the attempts of certain philosophical or
theological phrasemakers to minimize or explain away the eternal
malignity of death, man's most relentless foe. A human being could fall
no lower than to accept death as a friend. Thus in a poem:

Yea, hear it, ye heavens, with loathing and grief;
The sons of the Highest now look for relief
In the ways of damnation
And find consolation
In hopes of