Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/40

 witnesses for the truth (sandhedsvidner) which extends through the centuries down from the time of the Apostles."

This is the provocation for which Kierkegaard had waited.

"Bishop Mynster a witness for the truth"! he bursts out, "You who read this, you know well what in a Christian sense is a witness for the truth. Still, let me remind you that to be one, it is absolutely essential to suffer for the teaching of Christianity"; whereas "the truth is that Mynster was wordly-wise to a degree—was weak, pleasureloving, and great only as a declaimer." But once more — striking proof of his circumspection and single-mindedness — he kept this harsh letter in his desk for nine months, lest its publication should interfere in the least with Martensen's appointment, or seem the outcome of personal resentment.

Martensen's reply, which forcefully enough brings out all that could be said for a milder interpretation of the Christian categories and for his predecessor, was not as respectful to the sensitive author as it ought to have been. In a number of newspaper letters of increasing violence and acerbity Kierkegaard now tried to force his obstinately silent opponent to his knees; but in vain. Filled with holy wrath at what he conceived to be a conspiracy by silence, and evasions to bring to naught the whole infinitely important matter for which he had striven, Kierkegaard finally turned agitator. He addressed himself directly to the people with the celebrated pamphlet series Oieblikket "The Present Moment" in which he opens an absolutely withering fire of invective on anything and everything connected with "the existing order" in Christendom—an agitation the like of which for revolutionary vehemence has rarely, if ever, been seen. All rites of the Church—marriage, baptism, confirmation, communion, burial—and most of all the clergy, high and low, draw the fiery bolts of his wrath and a perfect hail of fierce, cruel invective. The dominant note, though varied infinitely, is ever the same: "Whoever you may be, and whatever the life you live, my friend: by omitting to attend the public divine service—if indeed it be your habit to attend it—by omitting I to attend public divine service as now constituted