A year after his
death, his widow married his successor in the pastorate, Pastor Ole
Holbeck, who proved himself a most excellent stepfather to his adopted
sons.

Reverend Holbeck personally taught the boys until Nicolaj, and a year
later, Broder and Hans Adolph were prepared to enter the Latin school at
Ribe. This old and once famous school was then in a state of decay. The
town itself had declined from a proud city, a favored residence of kings
and nobles, to an insignificant village of about fifteen hundred
inhabitants. Of its former glory only a few old buildings and,
especially, the beautiful cathedral still remained. And the Latin school
had shared the fate of the city. Its once fine buildings were decaying;
its faculty, which in former times included some of the best known
savants of the country, was poorly paid and poorly equipped; and the
number of its students had shrunk from about 1200 to less than a score.
Only the course of study remained unchanged from the Middle Ages. Latin
and religion were still the main subjects of instruction. It mattered
little if the student could neither speak nor write Danish correctly, but
he must be able to define the finest points in a Latin grammar of more
than 1200 pages. Attendance at religious services was compulsory; but the
services were cold and spiritless, offering little attraction to an
adolescent youth.

The boys completed their course at Ribe and entered the university of
Copenhagen, Nicolaj in the fall of 1710 and the younger brothers a year
later. But the change offered them little improvement. The whole country
suffered from a severe spiritual decline. Signs of an awakening were here
and there, but not at the university where Lutheran orthodoxy still
maintained its undisputed reign of more than a hundred years, though it
had now become more dry and spiritless than ever.

The brothers all intended to prepare for the ministry. But after two
years Nicolaj for various reasons left the University of Copenhagen to
complete his course at the University of Kiel. Broder remained at
Copenhagen, completing his course there in the spring of 1715. Hans
Adolph studied for three years more and, even then, failed to complete
his course.

Hans Adolph Brorson

It was a period of transition and spiritual unrest. The spiritual revival
now clearly discernible throughout the country had at last reached the
university. For the first time in many years