Soren Kierkegaard

this capacity he had learned that there was “no tribe of people more difficult
to govern than professors; they are all learned men, and this means that they
all understand everything better than everyone else; most of them believe
that they have a great sense for business, even though the fewest of them
actually have a grasp of it.” Nor was Mynster happy about the spirit that
reigned at the faculties of humanities and theology at the university. “Ever
since Hegel had been appointed to the University of Berlin, his philosophy
had become absolutely the only thing, and the arrogance of his supporters
wasboundless.”Mynsterhadbeenquite convincedthatHegelianismwould
be only a passing philosophical fad, but in this he had been mistaken. He
had not felt himself qualified to combat Hegelianism, however, and he was
therefore satisfied with taking part in only a few “vanguard skirmishes,” in
particular against Heiberg. At first, Heiberg had remained silent, but in
1839, seconded by Martensen, he took up the challenge after the publica-
tion of Mynster’s “Rationalism, Supranaturalism.” But the entire battle
took place without “the least break in the respect I have for the talents of
myopponentsorintheaffectionIhaveforthelatter[Martensen]inparticu-
lar, an affection that has since increased year after year.”
Ecclesiastical labors also made heavy demands on Mynster’s time. Of par-
ticular significance in this respect were the official pastoral visitations, jour-
neys often a week in duration that Mynster made all over the country,
looking into the state of the Danish clergy, of whom he gives a quite unvar-
nished portrait in his visitation diaries for the period from 1835 to 1853.
The countless talks and sermons that had to be written, delivered, and--in
later years--also published, also took time, and he published a collection of
sermons every year from 1846 through 1853. Even though the acoustics in
Trinity Church (home to the congregation of the burned-out Church of
Our Lady until 1829) were rather poor and therefore completely unsuited
to his thin voice, about which he often complained, people flocked to the
church in great numbers: “I have always had the pleasure of having a large
audience, drawn from various social classes. If I have often been dissatisfied
with myself for having spoken edifyingly to the lower social classes perhaps
less frequently than I should have, I have also seen consoling evidence to
the effect that this was not entirely the case: I had many plain citizens and
manual laborers among my regular listeners.” In fact, he became the capital
city’s fashionable pastor. He was particularly sought out by those who were
materially or intellectually well-off, and “as time went by I succeeded in
gathering around myself a circle of the most reasonable—and in every re-
spect the most desirable—listeners the city could offer.” It was in the cards
and in the stars that he would be appointed court chaplain in 1826, royal