ghts, even if they have not
always had the right opinion of Christianity, and particularly have
taken up with the confusions of Grundtvigianism; but now, now it has
taken another path. Do you see the spirit of revolt, pastor? Do you
hear how they rise and tear asunder all its bonds; how opposition
arises against all that is high and holy, and they storm even against
the foundations of society?"

"May God help us!" sighed the pastor. "It does not look right. Is
there anything new in the newspapers?" he asked, as if to get away
from a conversation that plainly oppressed him.

Hans ran out, and came quickly in again with the newspapers. Such of
these as were French he took for himself, the rest he gave to Balle.

"Do you see, father?" said Hans with the mien of a schoolmaster. "If
you will have politics, you must turn to France. All other politics
are merely an echo of theirs. France is Europe. France is the world!"

"Do you hear, pastor?" said Balle. "Do you hear how the French spirit
spreads and increases in power? the French spirit, which has always
been one and the same with rationalism and revolution?"

"Here is an article that will do Balle good!" called out Hans. "It
does not assume the good tone or prattle tediously like our Norse
newspaper articles. There is fire and burning in it; you recognize
something like a clenched fist back of the words, prepared for
everything upon which it may hit. That is what I call politics!"

"Oh, you are a foolish fellow," said the pastor. "Come, out with it!"

Hans read an article against the priestly party or clericals, and the
piece was severely radical. It was particularly to the effect that the
clergy and Christianity must be ousted from the public schools, if
thinkers were to be really for a genuine and sound popular education.
Christianity had already done what it could do; hereafter it lay
merely in the way. "Freedom and self-government" was the war-cry now,
for this generation. They might be fair enough, many of the dreams
which the new time compelled us to abandon; but light and life and
truth were ten times fairer than all dreams.

The chaplain sat and sulked, and looked into one of the Norse papers.
"Here stands the same," said he. "No, but--? Yes, the same, and yet
not the same. The Norse paper has cut out or changed all that treats
directly of Christianity; the rest is the same."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Hans.

"Yes, they are as wise as serpents," sighed the ch