"The Church," he writes, "can surely not be re-established in its former
religious significance, for the system upon which it rests has slept
away three centuries of history; and it is of no use that this man or
that man yet pretends to believe in the somnambulist. But the church has
also a civic significance as an integral part of the social order of
humanity. If you abandon that to the spirit of laxity and drowsiness, I
can see no reason why the clergy and the whole religious apparatus
should not be, and ought not to be, abolished and their costs covered
into the treasury."

These are not highly episcopal sentiments; but they are in keeping with
Tegner's whole personality and his conception of his duty. His first
concern was to purge his diocese of drunken clergymen, a task in which
he encountered many unforeseen difficulties.

"It is nowadays less difficult," he says, "to get rid of a king than a
drunken clergyman."

He was, indeed, very moderate in his demands, stipulating only that no
shepherd of souls should show himself drunk in public. But the bibulous
parsons frequently had influential relatives, who exerted themselves
with the government to thwart the bishop's reformatory schemes. If
Tegner had not been the masterful, tireless, energetic prelate that he
was, his ardor would have cooled; and he would have contented himself
with drawing the revenues of his office, and left with the lukewarm
government the responsibility for frustrating his purposes. But this was
contrary to his nature. He could not calmly contemplate abuses which it
was his duty to remedy; and no discouragement ever sufficed to dampen
his noble zeal. The marked and fanatical pietism which then was much
diffused among the Smaland peasantry he fought with his cheerful gospel
of reason and sanity. Just as poetry to him meant the highest bloom of
life, and his radiant lyre resounded with noble music like the statue of
Memnon, when touched by the rays of the dawn; so religion was, in its
essence, perfect sanity of soul, a beautiful equilibrium of mind, and
complete self-mastery. His Christ was not primarily the bleeding, the
scourged, the crucified, but rather a benigner and lovelier Phoebus
Apollo, the bringer of clearness and light, the dispeller of the
unwholesome mists and barbaric gloom that yet brood over the human soul.
Like Goethe, he cherished a veritable abhorrence of the mystic symbolism
of the mediaeval church; and was rather inclined