nowIamoverhere[inJutland]andhavemissedyouquiteoften—especially
lately. But then when I received the book and read some of it, it was like
going over to your place and talking with you.” The book had been pub-
lished pseudonymously, but this obviously had not concealed its true signa-
ture. “Thank you for it. It looks as though it will have just as quiet a recep-
tion as its predecessors,” was the encouraging note from the provinces. And
then Boesen left the subject of the book and turned to a detailed discussion
of the commotion occasioned all over Jutland by a proposal to legalize civil
marriage. Boesen was now involved with the nuts and bolts of practical
theology; Christmas was coming, and the curate and his wife were busy:
“Soon I shall once again have to deliver many sermons in a short period of
time. I preach the best I can, but often it is pretty poor. Frequently I have
to sit and bide my time until very late on a Saturday afternoon before things
fall properly into place; then I have to let go of all my misgivings and en-
deavor to entrust myself to God. On Christmas Day I have to preach three
times, the first of which is at six o’clock in the morning. I send greetings
fromLouise.SheisquitewellandthesedaysisbusygettingreadyforChrist-
mas. We live in rather cramped quarters and in very unsettled circum-
stances, but it is so difficult to find a decent place to live; still, we are doing
our best to find one so that we can receive you when you come to visit us.
We speak of you quite often.”
To Kierkegaard’s credit, dyed-in-the-wool idiosyncratic that he was, he
never waxed ironic about Boesen’s letters, which now and again invite such
treatment. Or, in fact, might Emil Boesen and his busy Louise have served
as models of a sort for Ludvig From, theological graduate, and his little
Juliane, subsequently parodied with such divine nastiness in Kierkegaard’s
The Moment?
“And Why, Then, This Concealment?”
Inconnection withthesame debateaboutcivil marriagethathad reachedall
the way to Boesen up in Horsens, Jutland, the Grundtvigian A. G. Rudel-
bach published a piece that included the following proclamation: “Indeed,
in our times, it is precisely the highest and most profound interest of the
Church...tobeemancipated from what can rightly be calledhabitual and
governmentally established Christianity.” Rudelbach appended a note to this
remark: “Thisis the same aswhat one ofthe most excellentwriters of recent
times,Søren Kierkegaard, seeks to emphasize, impress upon, and—as Luther
says—to drive into every person who will listen.”