ildhood 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.

Broder Pedersen remained at Randrup till his death in 1646, and was then
succeeded by his son, Broder Brodersen, a young man only twenty-three
years old, who shortly before his installation had married Catherine
Margaret Clausen, a daughter of the manager of Trojborg manor, the estate
to which the church at Randrup belonged. Catherine Clausen bore her
husband three sons, Nicolaj Brodersen, born July 23, 1690, Broder
Brodersen, born September 12, 1692, and Hans Adolph Brodersen--or
Brorson--as his name was later written--born June 20, 1694.

Broder Brodersen was a quiet, serious-minded man, anxious to give his
boys the best possible training for life. Although his income was small,
he managed somehow to provide private tutors for them. Both he and his
wife were earnest Christians, and the fine example of their own lives was
no doubt of greater value to their boys than the formal instruction they
received from hired teachers. Thus an early biographer of the Brorsons
writes: "Their good parents earnestly instructed their boys in all that
was good, but especially in the fear and knowledge of God. Knowing that a
good example is more productive of good than the best precept, they were
not content with merely teaching them what is good, but strove earnestly
to live so that their own daily lives might present a worthy pattern for
their sons to follow."

Broder Brodersen was not granted the privilege of seeing his sons attain
their honored manhood. He died in 1704, when the eldest of them was
fourteen and the youngest only ten years old. Upon realizing that he must
leave them, he is said to have comforted himself with the words of Kingo:

If for my children I
Would weep and sorrow
And every moment cry:
Who shall tomorrow
With needful counsel, home and care provide them?
The Lord still reigns above,
He will with changeless love
Sustain and guide them.

Nor was the faith of the dying pastor put to shame.