CHRISTIANIA 



rillilsTIA.MTY 



215 



J897 (estimate*!) 170,000. At (In- Iwginning of the 

 century it was hut 10,000. Christ initials named after 

 Cluistian l\'., \vlui foimiit'iiceil building it in 1624 

 nfter the destruction by fire of the ancient <-it\ <if 

 Oslo, which had begun t<> supersede Tromlhjem as 

 -capital from the 14th century. ChriHtiania is the 

 seat of the national parliament (the Storthing 

 and Lagthing), of the High Court of Judicature, 

 and ot 'tin- National I niversity, which has 46 pro- 

 fessor> and above 1.">(M) st mlent.s who are educated 

 free, with tin- exception of a small entrance-fee. 

 Connected \\ith this is the .students' garden, a 

 lihrary of about '.TiO.OOO volumes, a very well- 

 nrran.ued botanical garden, zoological, zootomical, 

 botanical, and ethnographical museums, and a 

 cabinet of coins and medals, chemical and physical 

 laboratories, and observatory. The Meteorological 

 Institute, established in 1866, is in systematic 

 telegraphic communication with British and other 

 European olwervatori.es. The king of Sweden and 

 Norway has two palaces here, one in the city 

 near the university, and one, Oscarshall, beauti- 

 fully situated two miles from the city on an emin- 

 ence overlooking the fiord, and containing Tied- 

 mand's celebrated pictures of Norwegian peasant- 

 life. There is a national picture-gallery, and a 

 very interesting museum of northern antiquities. 

 'The Dom, or Cathedral, and the Trefoldigheds 

 Kirke ('Church of the Trinity'), are the principal 

 ecclesiastical buildings. The Dampkjoken ( ' steam- 

 kitchen ') is an interesting institution for providing 

 cheap and substantial dinners to working-people. 

 The old fortress Akershus Faestning still remains, 

 and is used as a promenade, but has little military 

 value. Among other public buildings are the 

 Houses of Parliament, the civil and military 

 hospitals and infirmary, lunatic asylum, peni- 

 tentiary, two theatres, the Freemasons' Hall, and 

 several banks. The staple industry of Christiania 

 is its shipping trade ; it is the central emporium 

 for the south of Norway. Its chief export is 

 timber. A considerable industry has recently 

 become developed in the brewing and export of 

 Christiania 61, a sort of lager beer, with resinous 

 flavour, largely consumed throughout Norway, and 

 exported to England and other parts of the world. 

 The minor manufactures are cotton, canvas ; engine- 

 works, nail-works, and paper-mills, the latter 

 rapidly growing by the use of wood-fibre from 

 -.sawmill waste. There are many good hotels of 

 recent establishment, and a considerable business 

 is done in connection with the visits of British 

 tourists. Cariole-rnaking is one of the industries 

 thus developed. There are good shops, in all of 

 which English is well spoken ; and the city has 

 considerable printing and publishing establish- 

 ments. 



Christianity is the religion of which Jesus 

 Christ is not only the founder but also the object, 

 since it is by him and in him that man recovers 

 his union with God by an effective reconciliation. 

 We have thus determined in a general manner 

 its tnie character, and marked the difference that 

 exists, as we shall prove, between it and all the 

 religions which preceded it. But first we must 

 justify our definition. The only way to get a sure 

 grasp of the leading thought of a -doctrine and a 

 religion is to trace it to its origin, and to seize it 

 at its source, before the stream has had its 

 current troubled with the foreign elements that 

 mingle with it. Now about primitive Christ i 

 anity we possess a number of documents which 

 are at least authentic, whatever the authority we 

 attribute to them from a doctrinal point of view. 

 Confining ourselves to those documents alone, 

 whose authenticity is not disallowed by the most 

 negative criticism, we have in the epistles of Paul 

 to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Romans, 



and the ThoHsaloniarm, a testimony to primitive 

 Christianity which falls between the year 55 and 

 tin- vear M after Jcsns Christ. It emanates from 

 an apostle who had lx;i;n in direct contact with 

 tlie earliest associates of Christ, with thone who 

 hail Itotli seen and heard him. The first three 

 gospels, in which an historical basis is generally 

 recognised in what concerns the actions OH well a* 

 the discourses of Jesus, point bock to the same 

 date. We are thus led back to the very origins 

 of Christianity. Moreover we recognise in th 

 church of the earliest period made known to UH, 

 whether in the Acts of the Apostles or in writings 

 as authentic as the letters of James and those of 

 Peter, the living impress upon simple and honest 

 hearts of the direct remembrance of Christ, like 

 the track marking his passage across the earth. 

 Here our concern is not more to determine the true 

 character, the essence of Christianity, than to find 

 out in those documents the real meaning of the 

 religion of the gospel as it presents itself to us. 

 It is undeniable that if it claims to carry to the 

 world a revealed doctrine, revealing completely 

 the true nature of God as well as that of man, and 

 the normal relations of union between them, it 

 attaches that doctrine to a personality considered 

 not only as the organ of the revelation, but as 

 its object. We have thus the right to assert that 

 Christianity is Jesus Christ, without fearing to 

 detract anything from the attributes of God, for 

 Jesus Christ is nis ambassador, his son, the sole 

 mediator between God and man in one word, the 

 Redeemer, the Saviour, as his name implies. He 

 has never ceased to require faith in himself as the 

 means of again finding God by him. Fragmentary 

 quotations on this point are vain. The whole 



fospel demands this faith in his person, and St 

 'aul sums it up in the words addressed to the 

 gaoler at Philippi : ' Believe on the Lord Jesus 

 Christ, and thou shalt be saved ' ( Acts, xvi. 31 ). 



Christianity is herein distinguished from all 

 other religions. The revelation which it brings 

 to the world is something other than a super- 

 natural communication of a transcendent doctrine 

 about God, and about our origin and purpose in 

 the world. It consists essentially in a great work 

 accomplished by a single person a work which is 

 the supreme manifestation of the holy love of God. 

 The mere exhibition of this divine work caste a 

 bright light upon God as well as upon man, and 

 results in a doctrine which implies a complete 

 metaphysic, a complete anthropology, and an entire 

 system of ethics, as well as far-reaching views on 

 tne history of the human race in its terrestrial 

 development and in its future destiny. For had it 

 been otherwise, Christianity must have contented 

 itself with communicating to us the outward fact 

 without explaining it- without making us grasp 

 it by its inward side in its profound significance ; 

 which would have been to alter its nature com- 

 pletely. It none the less remains true that for 

 Christianity doctrine is only a secondary- and com- 

 plementary element the interpretation of the fact 

 of the great work, which is its first object. This 

 is why it addresses itself before everything to the 

 heart and to the conscience, although at tne same 

 time it opens up to the intellect the vastest pos- 

 sible hori/ons. As soon as we deviate from this 

 divine realism, we make Christianity fall into 

 an intellectual ism which chills it while perverting 

 it ; and we sulwtitute for it the parching formulas 

 of a scholasticism which at all times and in all 

 churches has caused it to leave its banks and 

 diverge into new and widely different channels. 



Let us further consider that divine work accom- 

 plished by Christ for the salvation of the world, 

 which constitutes the essence of Christianity, 

 without lingering to discuss its proofs, which 



