It stimulates reflection, it
awakens life, it arouses the torpid soul, it shakes the drowsy soul, it
shocks the pious soul, it frightens the timid soul, but it lifts them
all, as it were, by main force, out of themselves, and makes healthful
breezes blow, and refreshing showers fall upon what was formerly a
barren waste. This is Bjoernson's mission; this is, during the second
period of his career, his greatness and his highest significance.
Of course there are many opinions as to the value of the work he has
accomplished in this capacity of political and religious liberator. The
Conservative party of Norway, which runs the errands of the king and
truckles to Sweden, hates him with a bitter and furious hatred; the
clergy denounce him, and the official bureaucracy can scarcely mention
his name without an anathema. But the common people, though he has
frightened many of them away by his heterodoxy, still love him. It is
especially his disrespect to the devil (whom he professes not to believe
in) which has been a sore trial to the Bible-reading, hymn-singing
peasantry.
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