“‘I am Father Sylvester, the last priest of this Church. When the new religion was forced upon the land, I wandered forth, and am now returned once more, to die where I have lived. The good people of Gisholdt Gaard have secretly supported me.’
“Moved with this recital, the Lutheran priest asks—‘And are you trying to seduce the people back to the old religion?’
“The aged man rejoins, with vehemence—
“‘It were an easy task, did I wish to do so; but I do not. It is only at night that I say prayers and celebrate mass in the inner sacristy there.’
“Tovel, thoroughly softened, when he finds that his beloved Reformed faith was not likely to suffer, finishes the conversation by saying—
“‘Old man, you shall not lack anything that it is in my power to give you. Send to me for aught that you may have need of.’
“The venerable priest points to the stars, and exclaims, solemnly—
“‘That God, yonder, will receive both of us, Protestant and Catholic.’
“After this they cordially shook hands. Tovel went home an altered man. Some time afterwards, the light ceased to shine entirely. He knew why. Old Father Sylvester was no more.
“Mr. Tovel got off much better than many clergymen of the Reformed faith in those days. Old Peder Clausen, the chronicler, relates that he knew a man whose father had knocked three clergymen on the head. The stern old Norwegian bonders could ill brook the violence with which the Danes introduced Lutheranism; a violence not much short of that used by King Olaf in rooting out heathenism, and which cost him his life.”