Over sin and sorrow may
Ever rise and win the day.
His body was laid to rest in a small village church a few miles outside of Odense. There one still may see the stone of his tomb, bearing an inscription that likens him to a sun which, although it has set, still lights the way for all true lovers of virtue. Other monuments to his memory have been raised at Slangerup, Odense and other places. But his finest and most lasting memorials are his own great hymns. In these his warm, passionate spirit still speaks to a larger audience than he ever reached in his own day. The years have served only to emphasize the truth of Grundtvig’s beautiful epitaph to him on his monument at Odense:
Thomas Kingo is the psalmist
Of the Danish temple choir.
This his people will remember
Long as song their hearts inspire.
Hans Adolph Brorson, the Christmas Singer of Denmark
Chapter Eight Brorson’s Childhood and Youth
Hans Adolph Brorson came from Schleswig, the border province between Denmark and Germany which for centuries has constituted a battleground between the two countries and cost the Danes so much in blood and tears. His family was old in the district and presented an unbroken line of substantial farmers until his grandfather, Broder Pedersen, broke it by studying for the ministry and becoming pastor at Randrup, a small country parish on the west coast of the province.