Rejected by the Norwegian missionary institutions, he went in 1862
to Berlin, and entered a School for Missions there. He supported
himself by work as an engraver, and by unflagging private study
acquired learning and the knowledge of languages. He went to a
German Mission in India, which he left in January, 1866. In 1867 he
began his independent work in Santalistan. Here his persistence and
success attracted the attention and support of the English, and thus
he gradually became known and esteemed in his native land, where a
Santalistan Society was formed to aid his undertakings. In 1882 he
was duly ordained as clergyman by a bishop of the State Church. In
1873 he published a grammar and in 1904 a dictionary of the language
of Santalistan.
I do not share your faith. The memorable speech which Bj?rnson
delivered to the students in Christiania on October 31, 1877, the
anniversary of Luther's posting his theses in Wittenberg, revealed
that after a hard inner struggle he had freed himself from the
religious faith of his early life. The theme of his speech "Be in
the truth!" showed that for him henceforth the supreme thing was
freedom of thought and fidelity to the truth as expanding
development might manifest it to the individual. Liberal in thought
from the beginning, Bj?rnson departed more and more, not least
through the influence of Grundtvig, from the strict dogmatic
orthodoxy of the State Church.
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