You know how much Karl Oskar and I have loved each other since youth. You know we have been together in sickness and lust. Can it be your will that we must not know each other from now on? Not be together as married people after this? Can you mean that we must stay apart all the time we have left?
Dear God! You know that we, according to your commandments, have kept our conjugal promises and through all the years lived harmoniously and in compassion. My husband has never desired anyone else and I just as little. Karl Oskar has never looked at another woman and I never at a man. Therefore, forgive us if we feel that we should be together as before during the time we have left together here in this world.
Is it only a human whim that we must live apart? I ask your opinion. You will let me know what the actual truth is. If this is a trial from you, then I’ll accept it in humility. I’m only a simple, unschooled woman, but I seek your hand when I’m in doubt and need your advice.
And I pray you, dear God, as always: The children, especially Frank and Ulrika, are so tender still; don’t make my little ones motherless before they have grown bigger.
Bless and keep all of us who sleep in our beds this night in the whole wide world! Amen!
VIII. THE LETTER FROM SWEDEN
Åkerby, Ljuder Parish,
February 19, Anno 1862.
Dear Brother Karl Oskar Nilsson,
Health and Blessing
I will sit down and write a few Lines to tell you that our Mother is dead, which happened the 3rd inst. She left this Life and entered Eternity at half past seven in the Evening of said date. The years of her Life were 67, 2 Months and a few Days. Our Mothers death-suffering was short, as She came to her End by a sudden Stroke. The day before we had found her on the Ground, her senses gone; she remained unconscious until She died the following Evening.
A few days before Christmas our Mother received the Money you had sent her in a draft of Five dollars. We got the money at the Bank in Växjö, it amounted to 18 riksdaler Swedish money. Mother asked to thank you heartily. The last Time I spoke to her before she died she told me not to forget to Write to you in North America and thank you for the great Christmas Gift. Our Mother was buried the 9th inst. we had a quiet Funeral. Auction and Settlement we have also had after her, everything belonging to the Estate carefully noted down as it was at the Hour of Death. The papers will go to Court and then we two surviving heirs will divide the Balance. Your share will be sent to you.
Both our beloved Parents are now gone from Time. It is not in our Power to stop the Guest called death. When a relative lies on Bier we may mirror Ourselves each time and see what shall happen to us.
Forgive my poor writing, I can not put my thoughts on Paper. But we hope to hear from you and forget not your Sister in Sweden. We are only the two of us left now. We had once a happy childhood home and we must not forget each other in this Life.
Best Wishes Brother,
Written Down by your devoted Sister
Lydia Karlsson.
Part Two. The Astrakhan Apples Are Ripe
IX. THE RIVER OR THE FONT?
— 1—
The Swedish immigrants in the St. Croix Valley had become divided in religious matters. In recent years Baptist and Methodist congregations had been established, and many other sects were proselytizing among the Lutherans. Most numerous were the Baptists, whose revivalist Fredrik Nilsson was very active among his countrymen. The Lutheran ministers considered him the most dangerous sectarian in Minnesota.
Fredrik Nilsson had been a seaman and had sailed the seven seas. Already in 1851 he had been exiled from Sweden for preaching immersion. He had sought asylum in North America and settled in Waconia in Carver County, where he had founded a Baptist congregation and built a church. From there he spread the new teaching to other Swedish settlements. His countrymen were disturbed to hear that he had been banished from Sweden because of his faith, and this made it easier for him to gain converts. Nilsson came to St. Paul to preach and on one single day he baptized thirty-seven Swedes in the Mississippi River. Then he traveled to Taylors Falls and preached, founded a Baptist congregation, and immersed twenty-two persons in the St. Croix River.
But when it was rumored that Fredrik Nilsson would come and preach to the Lutherans at Chisago Lake, their pastor issued an order from the pulpit: No home must be opened to this uncouth, unschooled sailor who was not ordained as a church official! No member of their parish must open his house to this false teacher who was trying to gain a foothold in their community!
Johannes Stenius, the new pastor, was more rigid against sectarians than had been his predecessors. He considered it a shepherd’s first duty to fight irreligion and guard his entrusted flock against dispersal. In almost every sermon, he warned his listeners against the lost souls who were allowed to roam this country at will. He bitterly deplored the lawmakers of North America who, with entirely wrong ideas concerning spiritual freedom, had failed to safeguard the only true and right religion, the Lutheran. In Sweden Lutheranism was protected by the police authorities, but in America it was completely unguarded, so that simple and uneducated people were an easy prey. In Sweden false prophets were exiled or jailed on bread and water, but here they were honored and considered more important than those consecrated by God to preach his Holy Word.
This dart thus hurled against the Baptist preacher Fredrik Nilsson by the Lutheran minister had a result quite contrary to the one intended. At least ten different people offered him a room in which to preach. And he came to Center City and preached from Luke 2:7: “. . because there was no room for them in the inn. .” After the sermon a Baptist congregation was established among the Chisago people and twenty-four were baptized in the waters of the lake.
Great excitement followed in the Lutheran congregation; some twenty members, after hearing Nilsson preach, left the church and were baptized, and others wavered in their Lutheran faith. Women especially were open to the former sailor’s preaching. And Pastor Stenius issued still stronger warnings from his pulpit: His flock must consider its eternal welfare and not be blinded by the Baptist will-o’-the-wisp; women, with their inherited ignorance, were more easily a prey to this convert-maker. Each time a woman was led astray, Pastor Stenius could hear the angels cry in heaven and the devils roar with joyous laughter in hell.
Then, in one sermon, he issued a stern order to all married men to watch their wives and prevent them from being ensnared in sectarianism. This irritated many of the women: How much must they take from the pulpit? Great disputes started in the congregation. Karl Oskar Nilsson spoke out to their new pastor: He had recently come from Sweden and they realized he did not understand the temper among the settlers; here in America they no longer obeyed orders from the clergy. The pastor had no authority over them; he was their servant. He did not decide what they should do, he was not their master, it wasn’t like the old country. They had no wish for a new church power, they were glad to be rid of the old.
Pastor Stenius replied haughtily that he was not employed as the congregation’s servant; in his office he obeyed only God.
A few settlers were angered because the pastor had called them Sabbath breakers when they harvested their crop on a Sunday. No sensible person could harbor such exaggerated ideas about God’s protection that they could leave their dry crops in the fields when they saw rain coming. They appreciated the pastor’s zeal, but the shepherd’s care must not force them to lose their livelihood. Even in good things, many felt, their new pastor overdid it.