If the State truly would serve Christianity, let it take away the 1000 livings
As long as here in Denmark there exist 1000 livings for teachers of Christianity, the best is being done that can be done to hinder Christianity.
As long as there are 1000 livings, there continually will be a corresponding number of men who propose in this way to earn their bread.
Among these there will be some few who nevertheless had perhaps a call to preach Christianity. But precisely at the moment when it should have been a serious matter for them, in reliance only upon God and at their own risk, to undertake to come forward as teachers — precisely then the State opens to them the convenience of accepting a royal office, whereby these few are botched.
The far greater number will have no call at all to preach Christianity, but regard it simply as a living.
In this way the State succeeds in filling the whole land with Christianity in a badly spoiled condition, which creates the greatest difficulty for the introduction of true Christianity, far greater than complete paganism.
Take an example. If the State had a mind to put a stop to all true poetry, it would need merely (and remember that poetry is not so heterogeneous to this world as Christianity is), it would need merely to introduce 1000 livings for royal poetic functionaries. In this way the aim will soon be attained, the land will be overfilled continually with badly spoiled poetry, to such a degree that all true poetry becomes as good as impossible. The few who really had a call to become poets will precisely at the critical moment spring away from the effort required to venture out at one's own risk — and into the comfort of a royal office. But that effort is precisely the condition without which nothing can come of their call to be a poet. The many will see nothing but a living in this thing of being a poet, a living which is assured to them by the pain of going through with the course of reading for examination.