Sameiningin - 01.10.1961, Blaðsíða 20

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Sameiningin
ceived from them became to him the equivalent of a high school
education. After this private tutoring, we find him matriculating
at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and in due time he was grad-
uated from that college with the distinction of summa cum laude
which means the greatest honor obtainable. In fact, he was known
as “Dux”, which means the highest in the class. And thus the first
son of Gardar came to distinguish himself as a scholar. Now, of
course, many roads were open to him but he seems to have had
no difficulty in choosing a calling. Perhaps he had had an experi-
ence something like Paul on the Damascus Road. We find him
matriculating at the Maywood Theological Seminary, in Chicago,
from which he graduated in the spring of 1904, also with distinction.
And then this community paid him the great tribute of calling
him to be the minister of this parish—the congregation of Gardar,
Thingvellir, Fjalla—extending to him an unanimous call to become
their minister. Thus the theory that no man is a prophet in his own
country was contradicted. It showed that his people were highly
regarded among the pioneers. It showed unmistakably that his
own record in his youth was clear; his reputation was unimpeach-
able. He came and accepted the call to serve Christ and His church
in the community of his childhood.
Shortly after his ministry in the Gardar community com-
menced, it appears that a religious controversy broke out among
the pioneers, with people taking sides vigorously and rather
violently. It is a peculiar phenomena that such a controversy should
arise in a pioneer community where you might think that people
would have other things to attend to while they were getting settled
and acquiring the physical necessities of life. I think that it was
peculiar to the Icelandic settlers that at the very beginning of
their national existence in this country, they began to delve into
the mysteries of revelation and the contents of Christian faith. We
must remember that these people came from the State Church of
their homeland and in that church there was hardly any occasion
to discuss religious matters or to question the contents of the
teachings of the church. The church had always been there, and
it would always continue to be there and the people had very
little to do with it by way of maintaining it. Everything was settled,
both the doctrine and the outward management of the church. All
that the people had to do was to accept these things as a part
of their routine. Coming into the new district in North America,
one of the first things that the Icelandic settlers did was to establish
churches and organize congregations, and then the question arose
as to the organizational structure and actual content of the faith.
For the first time in the history of the Icelandic people, the priest-
hood of believers asserted itself in that the people began to analyze
and to question the contents of the Christian faith.