Читать книгу The Charm of Scandinavia - Sydney Clark - Страница 6

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

Tea House on Banks of Mälar. In the distance, the Grand Hotel, Stockholm.

Most of the Swedes are decidedly conventional in their costume in these days, and you see more shiny beavers and Prince Albert coats than you would in the streets of London, though it cannot be said that Swedes despise brilliant uniforms on state occasions. At such times the diplomatic representatives of the United States look like crows in a flock of peacocks.

While I am writing you about the government and the court, let me tell you a few words about the church, for Church and State are very closely connected in Sweden. To be sure, there are many free churches—Independent (or Congregational), Baptist, and Methodist—but the prevailing religion, to which I suppose three fourths of the people in the country adhere, is the State Lutheran Church. There are some exceedingly fine churches in Stockholm, though, considering the size of the city, it strikes a visitor that there are surprisingly few. Some of the parishes are very large, and contain twenty or thirty thousand nominal adherents. The Church of the Knights is perhaps the most interesting one, where many of the kings of Sweden, even down to our own time, are buried.

The parish priest is appointed by the king, or consistory, at least nominally, and is paid out of the taxes. Yet there is a good degree of self-government in the churches, for the parish elects the boards of administration of church affairs, and even votes on ministerial candidates. Each candidate has to preach a trial sermon before the congregation, while the king, if it is a royal benefice, as many of the churches are, appoints one of the three candidates who receive the highest number of votes, usually appointing the one who is the candidate of the majority.

It must be even a more trying thing to “candidate” in Sweden than in America, for here it is frankly admitted that the preacher and his sermon are on trial, and there is no polite fiction about an exchange with a brother minister, with a suggestion that the health of the candidate’s wife requires a change of parishes.

I had it in mind, Judicia, to tell you in this letter about certain things less lofty than affairs of Church and State, but must reserve the story for another epistle.

Faithfully yours,

Phillips.