But, O Jesus, I am crying:
Help that faith, on Thee relying,
Over sin and sorrow may
Ever rise and win the day.
His body was laid to rest in a small village church a few miles outside of Odense. There one still may see the stone of his tomb, bearing an inscription that likens him to a sun which, although it has set, still lights the way for all true lovers of virtue. Other monuments to his memory have been raised at Slangerup,
Odense and other places. But his finest and most lasting memorials are his own
great hymns. In these his warm, passionate spirit still speaks to a larger audience
than he ever reached in his own day. The years have served only to emphasize the truth of Grundtvig’s beautiful epitaph to him on his monument at Odense:
Thomas Kingo is the psalmist
Of the Danish temple choir.
This his people will remember
Long as song their hearts inspire.
Hans Adolph Brorson, the Christmas Singer of
Denmark
Chapter Eight
Brorson’s Childhood 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. 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
