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370 VIII. THE MODERN PERIOD (A.D. 18121910).
suffice to indicate the main directions, both of those which
may be called evangelical and social and those which are
more distinctly ecclesiastical.
The evangelical movements may be considered as more
or less derived from the Pietism which, as we have seen,
entered Sweden after the Church law became more
stringent under Charles XL, and especially in company
with the returning soldiers who had been taken prisoners
in the wars of Charles XII. It is a striking fact that these
movements, like many older ones in Sweden, were gener
ally initiated in the northern provinces, and often by men
of northern birth. This is the case with the "
New
Readers/ with Lars Levi Laestadius, with the prophets of
Helsingland, and with Rose*nius and Lektor Waldenstrom.
They took, however, different forms, and it is necessary to
distinguish one from the other.
The earliest of these movements, that of the "new
readers," took at its beginning the form of a protest
against the Catechism and Prayer Book put out by Arch
bishop Lindblom, and prescribed by authority in the year
1810 and 1811 respectively. It arose in Norrland, particu
larly in the neighbourhood of the coast towns of Pitea and
Skelleftea. The "Old Readers" had not separated from
the Church, but the new sect, after a time, were eagerly
desirous to do so. About the year 1848 they began to
administer their own sacraments. They professed to be
enthusiastic for
"
pure doctrine," as against the unortho-
doxy of the State Church, and they pressed justification
by faith to an antinomian extreme. For instance, a soldier
from Pitea, who became one of their leaders, asserted that
a man could have saving faith, even when sin and a love of
this world were ruling in his heart; while John Rostrom,
a peasant preacher (who died in 1868), denounced the
clergy of the established Church as false prophets.
The movement which is connected with the name of
Lars Levi Laestadius (1800 1861) was, at any rate in its
inception, of a very different character. He was a learned
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