Calvin As Mediator.

In the procession of the ages there is one epoch which reminds us of the moment when the sun rises and pours out his rays over the earth to guide men in their goings. It is that epoch at which the day-star from on high, Jesus Christ, the light of the world, appeared, and left behind him in his Word a luminary intended to shed light and life into the minds of men; but the natural darkness of man’s heart easily rises around and obscures it, even if it cannot wholly extinguish it. Since that time there have been other epochs of secondary importance, in which God has rekindled the waning light of heavenly doctrine, and has restored its pristine brightness for the salvation of the world. Of these secondary epochs the Reformation is that which has exerted the most powerful and most lasting influence in enlightening and in converting men, and in giving to man and the world a new life and new activity. No man had a greater share in this than Calvin; not, indeed, in the first impulse; that was Luther’s alone; but in the happy influence which it has had on human society in the two great spheres of spiritual and temporal things. To convince ourselves of this, nothing more is necessary than to glance at those countries in which this influence of the great reformer prevails, and which generally present a contrast to those in which the pope has prevailed. We know how many enemies Calvin had, and we confess that there were shadows in his life, as there are in the life of every human being; but we have an immovable conviction that the truths which he announced with incomparable purity and force are the mightiest remedy for the decay of the individual and the nation, and that they alone can communicate to a people the light and the life adapted to raise them from their weakness and to strengthen their steps in the paths of justice, liberty, and moral greatness.

BOOK XII.
THE REFORMATION AMONG THE SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS: DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY.

CHAPTER I.
THE AWAKING OF DENMARK.
(1515-1525.)

The Scandinavians, men of the North or Northmen, who inhabited the three countries, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, embraced the Reformation at the same time. In each of these lands it had its own roots, but it came to them essentially from Germany, the only European nation with which their inhabitants had frequent intercourse.

A chief named Odin, whose history is confused with fables, appeared in Europe about the time of the Christian era. Mounted on an eight-footed horse, carrying a lance in his hand, and having on his shoulders two ravens who served him as messengers, he advanced at the head of a people whom he led out of the interior of Asia. His descendants were kings of the Goths and the Cimbri. For himself, he became the god of these nations, the father of gods, and the object of a senseless and sanguinary worship.

A Christian man named Anschar, as much given to kindness as Odin had been to carnage, as capable of inspiring love as the father of Thor had been of exciting terror, was, in the ninth century, the apostle of Scandinavia. Towards the close of the fourteenth century the three kingdoms were united by the treaty known as the Union of Calmar.

The Scandinavians endowed, like the Germans, with deep affections have an intellect perhaps not so rich as theirs, but they possess greater energy. There seemed to be little probability that these countries would receive the Reformation. The clergy were powerful, and the nobility most commonly followed the leading of the priests; but the people, without any violent action, without any abrupt movements or passionate speeches, were to pronounce finally and decisively for the truth and for freedom. It was in the hearts of the sons of the soil and the dwellers on the sea coasts, that the love of the Gospel began to spring up in the sixteenth century.

John Tausen.

The island of Fionia, situated in the centre of the Danish States, between the continent of Jutland and the island of Zealand, is a green and wooded country, full of freshness, radiant with beauty, generally bordered with picturesque rocks cut out by the sea, the fiords of which run up far into the land. On one of these inlets, to the north-east of the Great Belt, stands the village of Kiertminde. At the end of the fifteenth century there was living in this village a poor farmer named Tausen, and to him was born, in 1494, a son who was named John. The child used to play on the shores of the Great Belt, where the first objects that attracted his notice were the sea and its vast expanse, the waves running in to break upon the shore, the boats of the fishermen, the distant ships, the abysses and the storms. His father was poor, and John, from an early age, assisted him in his labors; he accompanied him to the hop plantations, or leaped with him into the fishing-boat, braving the waves. As it was customary for every one to make his own garments, his furniture and his tools, the boy learnt a little of every thing. But there was an intelligence in him which seemed to mark him out for a higher calling than that of laborer or fisherman. His father and mother often talked of this; but they were grieved to think that they were unable, on account of their poverty, to give their son a liberal education.[[214]]