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270
iii. constitution and administration of sweden.
there are 13,042; that is the result of 17 years’ work in the country. The
Young Men’s Christian Association (some 110 clubs, membership 7,700)
and the Young Women’s Christian Association (about 50 clubs, membership
4,700) have been introduced from England. The Christian Students’
Movement, which has done much to stimulate religious life at Scandinavian Colleges
during the last decade, had its origin in North America. A world-wide
movement of this kind, called The World’s Student Christian Federation, was
organized in 1895 at Vadstena, Sweden, and since that time a Swede has been
chairman of this association. — Adherents of non-protestant faiths are,
principally, Roman Catholics (about 2,000) and Jews (about 3,400). The number of
Roman Catholics has of låte years considerably increased.
The multiplicity of religious parties naturally gives rise to much dissension
and mutual decrying, but at the same time it prompts to a large activity in
mission work. The National Evangelical Society and the Mission Union lead
the way in regard to both home and foreign missions; they also maintain mission
schools of their own. In the foreign mission-field the two bodies maintain
respectively about 70 and 50 missionaries of both sexes. The Swedish Church has
conducted, since 1874, a mission to the heathen in Africa and India, supporting
in all about 25 missionaries; the board of management is elected by Convocation
and presided over by the Archbishop. There are several societies at work in
China, the most prominent among them being the creedless Swedish China Mission
(25 missionaries). The Swedish Missionary Society, one of the oldest of the
sort in the country (founded in 1835), works among the Laplanders. A great
deal is done to provide sailors in foreign ports with facilities for religious care,
and Jews are not forgotten either.
The Swedish Bible Society (established in 1815) has since that date distributed
Bibles and Testaments to the number of over 1,150,000. — Deaconesses have been
appointed in many places, the institution being borrowed from Germany; the
Training Home at Ersta near Stockholm has been in existence for upwards of fifty years
and has become, more especially under the superintendence of J. C. Bring
(during the period 1862/98), a very important factor in the life of the Swedià
Church and one that has been fruitful of much blessing. The Training Home
has a membership of about 240 Sisters, 50 of whom holding posts as parish
deaconesses. This branch of church service has been gaining ground latterly more
and more, especially in Stockholm and the other large towns. Attention is aJso
being increasingly paid to providing improved religions care for the working
people on the outskirts of large communities, a matter which was crying for
more effort, since that section of the people was in a fair way of becoming
quite dechristianized. There is still much to be done even in the country
districts in the same directions. V. Rundgren has calculated that 20 %
of the population of Sweden attend the services of the National Church each
Sunday and 5 % those of the Dissenting Bodies. Of the total number of those
who become confirmed little more than half retain communion with the Church.
A lively communication is kept up with the Swedes of the United States,
even in a religious sense. As in Sweden, so there, religious factions are numerous.
Large numbers of emigrants fail to join any religious body, but the majority of
those who are desirous of doing so, become members of the Augustana Synod,
a body that has upwards of 750 churches or chapels, 453 clergy, and an average
attendance on Sundays of 150,000; the annual expenses of maintenance amount
to nearly 2 million kronor. The Synod has supported since 1860 a College of
its own in affiliation with the clergy Training College on Röck Island in Illinois
State; there are 575 students there with a staff of 27 teachers. It is by no
means an uncommon thing for the clergymen attached to the Synod to obtain
the consent of the Crown to enter the service of the Swedish Church at home.
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