Viborg, a very old town, is situated in the north of Jutland. The climate of the district is more inclement, the winds colder and more violent, the people more coarse and ignorant. The fiords with which the son of the peasant of Kiertminde had been familiar were there of larger extent, sometimes separated from the sea merely by a low line of sand, which in a storm seemed as if it must be swept away by the rush of the waters. But the young man had to encounter something ruder than the severe climate. According to the rules he was to be confined as a heretic in a prison the gates of which would never be opened. The prior of the monastery, however, when his prisoner arrived, was touched at seeing, instead of the terrible heretic that he looked for, a young man, gentle, intelligent, and amiable. His heart was won and he allowed him a good deal of liberty, particularly that of associating with the other monks. Could Tausen be silent? He knew well that if he spoke he would bring on himself fresh persecution. But how could he give up the hope of doing good to those about him? He remembered what Luther used to say; ‘When the apples are ripe they must be gathered; if we delay they spoil. The great point is to seize the opportunity.’ _In tempore veni quod est omnium primum._ It seemed to Tausen as if he were still reading those words which the good Wittenberg doctor had written in chalk over his fireplace—‘Who lets slip an hour lets slip a day.’[258]
Tausen therefore resolved not to lose a moment, and he resumed in the cloisters of Viborg the work which he had been doing in the cloisters of Antwerskow. He openly avowed there the doctrine of free salvation, of justification by grace. The astonished friars at first vigorously opposed the new-comer. Frequent discussions took place; and that monastery of the North, in which for so long a time a dead calm had prevailed, was agitated with great waves white with foam, like the sea on whose shores it stands. The prior at first shut his eyes. He hoped that Tausen would be brought back by himself and his monks to the doctrine of the church; but he was mistaken. Many of the monks were unsettled, and agitation was beginning in the town. One of the friars, whose name was Tœger, had his heart touched by the doctrine of Christ; and opening his mind privately to Tausen begged him to instruct him in the whole truth. The two friends, taking great precautions and carefully concealing themselves from their superiors, spent together many blessed hours in meditation on the Scriptures of God. But no long time elapsed before persecution broke out.[259]