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But more positively in the service of the truth has Soren Kierkegaard worked. I feel my inability to give a correct idea of the rich authorship of this champion of Christianity, who has found a better conductor to the truth than the philosophers of our time. Having long lost sight of his writings, it is with distrust I attempt to give a sketch of them. The intelligent classes in Denmark and Norway having long and painfully felt the deficiency of the established religion to satisfy their spiritual wants, they were looking in vain for a word that would solve the problems of life. Then sounded a voice through Europe-“The spirit of the times rules the world,” and “To think is to be.” “Yes, this must be the truth,” was echoed from thousands of hearts; “the great Hegel has said it.” All rejoiced: “Broken for ever is the chain of the church-the schools of science are the right churches, the thought is the true Messias. That man who dares to contradict this, has no right to be called a man, he is only a brute.” Even from the pulpits these new dogmas were taught and explained, and the Word interpreted according to them. But they were not long to remain in the uninterrupted enjoyment of this. While all appeared glad and happy, at once a flood of writings fell on the public-“Either, or,”-”Fear and Tremor,”-“The Reiteration,”-“The Idea of Dread,”-“The Proviso,”-“Philosophic Crumbs,”-“States of Life,”:-“Postscript to Philosophical Crumbs,” and some others. With great erudition, psychological acuteness, remarkable dialectical and logical power,-with almost unequalled command of language, together with a great amount of Christian experience,-they uncover the dark recesses of the human heart, and throw light therein from the Holy Word. Following the philosophers of our time, step by step, they show the psychological consequences of the new doctrines; and after having, in this way, shown what Christianity is not, in his book entitled “Works of Love,” he explains what it really is.
--
Norway, April 23, 1863 by T. F. Boyeson, The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine, Vol. X.-Enlarged series. 1863, p. 341-343

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

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Kierkegaard expressed himself without reserve on the significance his writings may have had for certain persons. His old uncle, M. Kierkegaard the merchant, had a son a few years younger than Soren Kierkegaard. This son was a cripple, paralyzed all down one side, and completely deformed in body, but intellectually very talented. He read his cousin’s Soren Kierkegaard’s writings with great interest, visited Kierkegaard from time to time in his home, and received much spiritual uplift from these visits. I [Hans Brochner] once spoke to Kierkegaard about him, and told him how greatly the lad had been impressed by one of Kierkegaard’s works, namely the discourse for a Confession-Service in Edifying Discourses in Different Vein. (In it Kierkegaard speaks of a man who, through bodily infirmity, is prevented from fulfilling an outward task. Beautifully and uplifting it is said how such a man still retains his ordinary ethical task unimpaired, and that his life’s work merely takes on a special form-see Purity of Heart p. 133) Kierkegaard said, ‘Yes, for him the passage is a blessing’; and that was indeed true. It had the power to give this sorely tried man strength to overcome the thought that his life was useless and wasted, and to make him feel that he really was the equal of those more fortunately endowed by Nature. It was precisely Kierkegaard’s lively ability to make him feel like this that made him go away from the above-mentioned conversations with Kierkegaard with renewed strength.

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

 

You and I may perish. Temptation which has been too strong for thousands of stronger men, may be too great for me; I may prove false to my own idea of religion and of duty; the gold of commerce may buy me, as it has bought richer men; the love of the praise of men may seduce me; or the fear of men may deter my coward voice, and I may be swept off in the earthquake, in the storm, or in the fire, and prove false to that still small voice. If it shall ever be so, still the great ideas which I have set forth, of man, of God, of religion, — they will endure, and one day will be "a flame in the heart of all mankind." To-day! why, my friends, eternity is all around to-day, and we can step but towards that. A truth of the mind, of the conscience, of the heart, of the soul, — it is the will of God; and the omnipotence of God is pledged for the achievement of that will. Eternity is the life-time of Truth.

 

Theodore Parker

 

Miss Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."
In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea.
For a long time I was still ... trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of this new idea. The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.
Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"
"Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out," she replied. Then in simpler words than these, which at that time I could not have understood, she explained:
"You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play."
The beautiful truth burst upon my mind — I felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.

 

Helen Keller

 

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

 

Tecumseh (popular pronunciation of Tecumtha)

 

A man who thinks deeply and daringly in a small country becomes, of necessity, a martyr. It is only the conformist who is tolerated; the non-conformist is ridiculed or persecuted. Therefore the one philosopher whom Denmark has produced, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), suffered the penalty of his greatness. He called himself “the martyr of laughter”; because the comic paper, The Corsair, made a butt of him, heaping upon him malicious ridicule. And, as everyone knows, against a witticism there is no defense possible. An epigram may kill a whole philosophy in a dozen volumes. The purpose of Soren Kierkegaard was to gain a new and more rational basis for Christianity, whereby it might re-conquer the heartfelt allegiance of the educated classes. He wars, in a long series of brilliant books against the official orthodoxy as represented by the state church and its clergy. His contemporary, Bishop Martensen (1808-1884), the well-known author of “Christian Ethics” and “Church Dogmatics,” upon whom the duty of their defense rested, held aloof from the controversy, possibly because he felt that he was, neither in profundity of thought nor brilliancy of dialectics, a match for Kierkegaard. Nor was the quondam disciple and adherent of Kierkegaard, Professor Rasmus Nielsen, who after a fashion continued his work, in any way compared with him. His attempts to reconcile religion and science reminds one of a tight-rope performance,- a tour de force in ingenious reasoning-a clever balancing in perilous altitudes with imminent danger of a somersault into space. The utter untenability of his position has been demonstrated with great logical cogency by Dr. Brandes. Among the most remarkable books of Kierkegaard (which, as far as I know, have been translated into German) are “Either-Or,” and “Stages on the Path of Life”.

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard