FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>  
ll them that we accept nothing unto salvation except what the Christian church has taught and confessed from generation to generation. To or from that we neither add nor detract. We acknowledge without reservation that word of faith which Paul says is believed to righteousness and confessed unto salvation. The manner of teaching and believing that faith so that the Old Adam may be put off and the new put on, we hold to be a matter of enlightenment in which we shall be guided by Grundtvig, as we are guided by Luther, only in so far as we are convinced that he has been guided by Scripture and the Spirit. We also disclaim any intention of making our conception of Scripture an article of faith which must be accepted by the church." Grundtvig's followers would, no doubt, have profited greatly by remembering this truly liberal view of their leader. Thus his years passed quietly onward, filled with fruitful labor even unto the end. In contrast to his often stormy public career, Grundtvig's private life was quite peaceful and commonplace, subject only to the usual trials and sorrows of human existence. During the greater part of his life he was extremely poor, subsisting on a small government pension, the meager returns from his writings and occasional gifts from friends. For his own part this did not trouble him; his wants were few and easily satisfied. But he "liked to see shining faces around him," as he once wrote, and he had discovered that the face of a child could often be brightened by a small gift, which he was frequently too poor to give. "But if we would follow the Lord in these days," he wrote to a friend, "we must evidently be prepared to renounce all things for His sake and cast out all these heathen worries for dross and chaff with which we as Christians often distress ourselves." Grundtvig was thrice married. His first wife, Lise Grundtvig, died January 4, 1851, after a long illness. Her husband said at her grave, "I stand here as an old man who is taking a decided step toward my own grave by burying the bride of my youth and the mother of my children who for more than forty years with unfailing loyalty shared all my joys and sorrows--and mostly latter." But Grundtvig did not appear to be growing old. During the following summer he attended the great meeting of Scandinavian students at Oslo, where he was hailed as the youngest of them all. And on October 4 of the same year, he rejoiced his enemies and griev
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>  



Top keywords:
Grundtvig
 

guided

 

Scripture

 

sorrows

 

During

 
church
 
generation
 

confessed

 
salvation
 

distress


Christians

 

heathen

 
worries
 

January

 
married
 

thrice

 
things
 
brightened
 

frequently

 

taught


discovered

 

renounce

 

illness

 

Christian

 

prepared

 

evidently

 

follow

 

friend

 

attended

 

summer


meeting

 
Scandinavian
 

growing

 

students

 

rejoiced

 
enemies
 

October

 
hailed
 

youngest

 
shared

loyalty
 

accept

 
taking
 
decided
 

husband

 

unfailing

 
children
 

mother

 
burying
 

profited