Among the emigrants there were also, of course, honest people who had not broken the laws of their own country. But what drove these into adventure? Nothing but the desire for worldly gain, for enjoyment of the flesh, for vain and transient things. It was the evil desire in their minds that drove them away; they were too lazy to earn a living through honest work; they wanted to gain riches without work; the emigrants wished for quick riches so they might afterwards live in gluttony, drunkenness, idleness, and adultery. The greatest part of them were arrogant, foolhardy, reckless people who spoke ill of their fatherland, who spit at the mother who had borne them.
It was true that the soil was fertile in North America, so the inhabitants could find their living easily. But a Christian must also consider the spiritual situation of the American people. In that country there were still wild, red-skinned tribes who lived almost like animals; and even among the white-skinned people there were many who were unfamiliar with the true God and the pure evangelical teachings. True Christians ought not to be haughty toward them, ought rather to feel sorry for them; but all people living in Swedish communities should thank God that He had let them be born in a land where true Christianity was taught. It might be true that Swedes had to work a little harder for their food than Americans, nay, at times even eat their bread in the sweat of their brow. But their forebears in Sweden had for long ages had to eat bread from the bark of trees, and endure hunger, yet they had done great things, much greater things than the Swedes of today. Bark bread gave spiritual strength to men. They also found strength in their contentment, and in their obedience to God and authority.
Great confusion and chaos existed in the United States. Dissenters and preachers of unsound doctrines went about on the loose, allowed to do what they wanted. The authorities stupidly let them alone. There were no less than eighty-seven false religious sects. The Americans were building a new tower of Babel to reach into the heavens. But the Lord soon would destroy and crush this confused land called the United States. For a sound, enduring order could be built only on unity in religion, on the only true and right teaching — the holy tenets of the Augsburg Confession.
The Lord God was a strong avenger. Within fifty years those United States would exist no more; within fifty years they would be obliterated from the face of the earth, like the empires of Rome and Babylon.
“Within fifty years! Remember my words! Remember my words!”
The dean stopped short; he had intended to say only a few words, and now he had preached a whole little sermon, to a congregation of one parishioner. But he must tell Karl Oskar Nilsson that America was a land for false prophets such as Danjel Andreasson, for adventurers and rogues such as Fredrik Thron — not a place of settlement for an honest, able farmer like himself.
And he pleaded: “Karl Oskar Nilsson! Remain in your home community and earn your living decently, as before!”
During the dean’s speech Karl Oskar had stood quietly, twisting the cap in his hand, in right turns; now he started twisting it in the other direction, toward the left, while his eyes wandered along the walls of the big room in the parsonage, where hung many portraits of Brusander’s predecessors in office. Perhaps a dozen deans and vicars and curates looked down on him from the four walls, some kindly admonishing, others urging more strongly, but all definitely dissuading — all agreeing in their successor’s appeaclass="underline" “Stay at home and earn your living honorably!”
“Aren’t you misled? Aren’t you seeing illusions and mirages?” the dean went on.
Karl Oskar stopped twisting his cap — then he began again, this time to the right. It was like an examination in the catechism, and, when he left home, he had not been prepared for an examination in order to obtain his papers. He could have answered these questions; but some of the awe for his confirmation teacher remained within him; he knew the dean did not like to be contradicted, and whatever he said the dean would twist so that he, Brusander, would be in the right.
The dean’s brow wrinkled: a peasant leaving his farm to emigrate to North America — a new sign of that spiritual decay which had set in among the country people, tearing asunder holy ties. The outermost cause of this evil was disobedience of the Fourth Commandment; as a result of this primary disobedience, even the last tie might be broken, the tie holding people to the beloved fatherland.
“Your venture might be the ruination of you and yours; therefore I advise against it. And you must be aware I speak only for your good.”
“I think you mean well, Mr. Dean.”
Karl Oskar had always felt that his pastor was sincere in the fatherly care of his parishioners’ spiritual and temporal needs, even though at times he assumed too great authority.
The dean went on: Because the emigrants were driven by selfishness and lust of the flesh — man’s base, carnal desires — emigration to the United States was contrary to God’s commandments and the true evangelical Lutheran church. Emigrants from Sweden had already been made aware of this in a frightful way. A group of people from the northern provinces — from Helsingland and Dalecarlia — had been led astray by an apostle of the devil, an instrument of falsehood, a peasant named Erik Janson, and in their blindness had emigrated to North America. On their journey they were stricken by cholera, that scourge from God. Hundreds of the poor people had died before they reached their destination. The Lord God was a powerful avenger, and cholera His instrument. The horrible punishment had calmed restlessness at home in the last year, quenched desire to emigrate.
After the experience of these sectarians one could comprehend God’s opinion of emigration.
“Answer me honestly, Karl Oskar: Is it not the desire for high living that drives you to emigrate?”
Karl Oskar was still twisting his cap with both hands as before. He did not contemplate the voyage to North America in order to abandon himself to those vices enumerated in the catechism: debauchery, gluttony, adultery, and others, which tended to shorten one’s life. He had not had high living in mind, of that he was sure.
“No. It isn’t because of that. Do not think so, Mr. Dean. It isn’t because I desire high living.”
“I believe your word,” said the dean. “But you are seized by the spirit of dissatisfaction. Otherwise you would remain in the land of your fathers. And have you thought of your parents, whom you abandon? And your father a cripple!”
“Their reserved rights go with the property, as usual. The old ones will manage.”
“But if all young people and those fit for work should emigrate, and leave the old and decrepit behind, who would then take care of the helpless?”
Karl Oskar kept silent, twisting his cap with fumbling, clumsy fingers. If only he were quick-witted; whatever he might say, the dean would surely put him in the wrong. And it seemed to him that he must tell his pastor it was time to stop his dissuasion. If the bishop himself were to come to the dean’s aid, he, Karl Oskar, still would not change his mind; nay, not even if the King tried to persuade him. Moreover, it was too late.
He now said, somewhat tartly: “I’ve already sold out. I’m free and without obligations. Perhaps I could have my errand attended to. .?”
Dean Brusander sat down and leaned his head against the high back of his chair. He set his lips, and his mouth took on a sterner look.
This peasant from Korpamoen seemed on the surface tractable and decent; but apparently he had a bullish nature. Through all the dean’s kindness and repeated advice he had not been able to move Karl Oskar one iota. Occasionally he had answered a few words, but for the most part he had persisted in a silence that was deaf to God’s words and his pastor’s admonitions. No human power could remove the man’s emigration notions. And now he sounded almost importunate, as he referred to his errand. It might well be that he lacked respect for the office of the ministry. Perhaps after all he was a horse of a different color.