Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/160

142 fluent, his style is remarkably vigorous and graphic, and he frequently evinces the skill of the master. This is particularly true of his above-mentioned translation of the Bible, published in 1550. From a linguistic standpoint it is, without exception, the most remarkable monument from the age of the Reformation. At the same time Pedersen's works are conspicuous for their marked popular and national character. This also applies to his work while he was still a Catholic. He was already then striving to promote the education of the layman, and after he had embraced the Lutheran religion he continued in this line of work, not simply because it was one of the chief objects of the Reformation to win the masses, but, rather, he really had the well-being of the people at heart. He did not, therefore, confine himself to religious writings for the advancement of the ecclesiastical reform, but he also wrote about other things, and in these, too, he knew how to strike a key that was familiar to the people. His adaptations of old chronicles continued, long after his death, to be the favorite reading of the masses. In contrast with the tendency prevalent in his time of waging war against every intellectual inheritance the people possessed from the past, he cherished the old legends and ballads and other monuments of the intellectual life of the people, and it would be doing him injustice not to mention the fact that he clearly comprehended the kinship of the northern nations, a fact repeatedly set forth in unmistakable language in his writings.

Christian Pedersen was not one of the leaders in the great struggle between the old and the new doctrine. He was abroad at the time when the contest was raging most fiercely, and even if he had been at home it is scarcely probable that he would have taken any prominent part. As a rule he preferred to keep aloof from the events of the busy world. As he says of himself, "he had always been fond of a quiet life, and in the turbulent times he had sought retirement among his friends and relations." His works reveal to us a character for which quiet, literary labor must have possessed the