124 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. soever is bom with Olaf 's temper now will still find, as Olaf did, new and infinite field for it! Christianity in Norway had the like fertility as in other countries; or even rose to a higher, and what Dahlmann thinks, exuberant pitch, in the course of the two centuries which followed that of Olaf. Him all testimony re- presents to us as a most righteous no less than most religious king. Continually vigilant, just, and rigorous was Olaf's administration of the laws ; repression of robbery, punishment of injustice, stern repayment of evil-doers, wherever he could lay hold of them. Among the Bonder or opulent class, and indeed everywhere, for the poor too can be sinners and need punishment, Olaf had, by this course of conduct, naturally made enemies. His severity so visible to all, and the justice and infinite beneficence of it so invisible except to a very few. But, at any rate, his reign for the first ten years was victorious ; and might have been so to the end, had it not been intersected, and interfered with, by King Knut in his far bigger orbit and current of affairs and interests. Knut's English affiairs and Danish being all settled to his
