cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

deeply moved, bid farewell to the congregation to which he had been minister for 20
years, the ardent separatists flocked by headed for their meeting place in Skien. At the
departure itself many followed Rode from the parish to Lillegården in Eidanger. Among
those who wanted to pay their respects to the pastor were several of the members of the
town board, and according to the report in the Correspondent, Mayor Borchsenius
thanked him in a few heartfelt words "for what he had been and done for Gjerpen for 20
years, and how with moved hearts everyone bids him and his family a last farewell."
Pastor Rode was not less moved when he answered this farewell greeting. He
remembered that he had not always stood in such a friendly relationship to the town as
now; he ascribed the former opposition from the town board mainly to youthful zeal and
too little understanding and thoughtfulness on both sides. Later, however, there had
arisen a more real and significant opposition between the pastor and one part of the
congregation. But he did not see these discords as dangerous, either; it was his conviction
that with God's help they would lead to something positive, even if one must anticipate
that the period of unrest could be long and entail many bitter experiences.
As early as around 1840 a stronger religious activity can be traced in the district.
We have mentioned in another connection how an organization was launched for the
cause of temperance in 1839, when the painter Fredrik T. Knudsen from Lista visited
Skien together with his son Hans Christian Knudsen. The father had been strongly seized
by the cause of missions at a time when it was still scarcely known in Norway, and the
son had recently returned home from the Rhein Missions Institute. During his stay in
Germany he got the idea to found a Norwegian missions society, and a year later he
himself went out as the first Norwegian missionary of recent times. They were received
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