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3- EVANGELICAL MOVEMENTS. WALDENSTROM. 375
at Luled in 1838).
8
He preached at first at Bethlehem Church
in Gefle as a decided follower of Rosenius. But the way in
which Rosenius disciples spoke of the expiatory death of Christ
for all" excited him to contradiction, and in 1872 he came
forward with a subjective doctrine of atonement. This caused
a rupture between him and part of Rosenius friends, but
Waldenstrom found new followers just because of his rejection
of the old doctrine of atonement.
At first he was averse to "Communion guilds," which the
awakened laity had formed in order to be able to
"
Break the
Bread" at home in their houses. But when once his request
to hold Holy Communion for his friends in a church of the
town was refused [by Archbishop Sundberg] he accepted the
"free
Breaking of Bread" as part of his own programme.
Upon that his followers collected 22,000 signatures to a peti
tion in favour of a free celebration of the Lord s Supper, as well
as of freedom in spreading the Word; but it was refused. In
spite of the refusal, the assemblies for Holy Communion in
creased in number and in strength, and in 1878, Waldenstrom
succeeded in uniting the greatest part of the free Church
Swedes into the so-called
"
Swedish Mission Covenant,"
which built chapel after chapel everywhere in Sweden just
as the Home Mission in Denmark built mission houses. But
while the discord continually increased between the free
Church Swedes and the Swedish established Church, the Home
Mission of Denmark has, up to the present time, generally
been on friendly terms with the National Church of Denmark
and her preachers, owing principally to William Beck s firm
hold over ritual and his consistent Lutheranism.
On Sunday, 26th September, 1909, I visited Lektor
Waldenstrom, the Wesley of Sweden, at his new mission
house in Lidingo a pretty island suburb of Stockholm.
He has a remarkable face, broad and strong, and smiling,
and a fresh colour after 72 years of life. His head is large
and his hair thick, while the eyelids droop obliquely from
the nose and partly cover the eyes. He received me very
courteously, and readily answered all questions that I ven
tured to address to him. His society is still nominally
within the Church, that is to say its members have not
officially registered themselves as separatists, and they
8 I owe to the kindness of my friend, Rev. Mats Amark, a copy of
Paul Petev Waldenstrom en teckning af hans lif af en Samtida, Stockholm,
Fredengren, 1900
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