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390 VIII. THE MODERN PERIOD (A.D. 18121910).
I have already spoken of the more distinctly separatist
work of Rose"nius, and I
may add that in 1854 he prevailed
upon his friends to build for him a chapel or prayer house
at Gefle, the second only at that time in Sweden, the first
being in the North at Umea.
It was in order, then, to check these ardent individualists
and to bring to mind great principles that had been, as
they thought, overlooked, that Bring, Sundberg and
Flensburg became co-editors of the Swedish Church
Times, which from its foundation, in 1855, and for about
ten years afterwards, exercised almost as great influence in
Sweden as the Tracts for the Times had done in England.
The editors worked in such complete harmony that they
did not distinguish their articles by signatures. In the first
article, which is known to have been by Bring, mention
was made of the Mecklenburg theologian, Kliefoth, whose
Eight Books on the Church of which only four were pub
lished made a considerable impression at that time in
Northern Germany. The critics of the day said sarcas
tically that the Kyrko Tidning
"
did not stand on its own
foot (fot), but on Kliefoth." The question, however, was :
1
Was its teaching right and in harmony with the doctrines
of the Church of Sweden?" Its main principles are thus
summarized by Bishop Billing of Lund in his affectionately
but judiciously written sketch of his father-in-law s life
(pp. 54 foil.). They certainly had good ground for
claiming the authority of the first German reformers.
In the first place the Church Times strongly accentuated
the truth that the Church is an organized society, not
merely a sum of individuals. In opposition to those who
were agitating for the entire freedom of the individual
and urging that the Church should abolish everything that
offended any individual conscience, or hindered anyone
from any religious action to which he felt called, the editors
of the Kyrko Tidning attempted to awaken and stimulate a
consciousness of the divine origin of the Church and its
right to be respected as a society. It is a society founded
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