Biography
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Hans Nielsen Hauge was born the fifth of ten children in his ancestral farm of Hauge in Tune in the county of Østfold. His father was Niels Mikkelsen Evenrød (1732–1813) and mother Maria Olsdatter Hauge (1735–1811).
He had a poor and otherwise ordinary youth until April 5, 1796, when he received his "spiritual baptism" in a field near his farm. Within two months, he had founded a revival movement in his own community, written a book, and decided to take his mission on the road. He wrote a series of books in his lifetime. In a total of 18 years, he published 33 books. Estimates are that 100,000 Norwegians read one or more of them, at a time when the population was 900,000 more-or-less literate individuals.
In the next several years, Hauge traveled - mostly by foot - throughout most of Norway, from Tromsø in the north to Denmark in the south. He held countless revival meetings, often after church services. In addition to his religious work, he offered practical advice, encouraging such things as settlements in Northern Norway. He and his followers were persecuted, though their teachings were in keeping with Lutheran doctrine. He began preaching about "the living faith" in Norway and Denmark after a mystical experience that he believed called him to share the assurance of salvation with others. At the time, itinerant preaching and religious gatherings held without the supervision of a pastor were illegal, and Hauge was arrested several times.
Hauge faced great personal suffering: his first wife died and three of his four children died in infancy. He was imprisoned for much of the period between 1804 and 1811. At the time, Norwegians did not have the right of religious assembly outside of the auspices of the state church. Hauge also found himself accused of various other spurious charges. By all accounts, his time in prison broke his health and led to his premature death. Upon his release from prison in 1811, he took up work as a farmer and industrialist at Bakkehaugen near Christiania (present day's Oslo), and in 1815 he married Andrea Andersdatter, who died in childbirth. In 1817, he remarried Ingeborg Marie Olsdatter and bought the Bredtvet farm (now the site of Bredtvet Church in Oslo) where he died.
Read more about this topic: Hans Nielsen Hauge
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