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io. PRESENT CONDITION. 425
First, I should place the lack of that leadership and
support on the part of landowners and gentry to which
we are so well accustomed in England. Secondly, I should
call attention to the curious tendency of the Swedish char
acter to depreciate its own institutions and generally to
under-value what is native and home grown, and to over
value what is new and foreign. Thirdly, I must refer to
the frequent rivalry and even hostility of the Free
Churches, which have, I fear, been too much influenced
by English, Scottish and American teachers. Their
opposition has too often given their well-intended piety a
bitter, contemptuous and self-righteous flavour. Fourthly,
I am constrained to suppose that there is a want of
spirituality and initiative, and a defective intelligence of
the new conditions of life on the part of a considerable
proportion of the clergy. There is certainly, as Bishop
Ullman shows, a great depression of energy caused by
external conditions. Further complaints of a somewhat
dull officialism on their part seem to be so frequent that I
am constrained to believe them in some measure true.
These complaints must, however, be discounted by con
sideration of the other three causes to which I have referred.
Statistics of the Diocese of Upsala.
With this preamble I will summarize the Upsala
statistics published in 1908, reminding you that, though
the archbishop performs episcopal acts in and for the city
of Stockholm (340,000 inhabitants), it is not part of his
diocese, but is a sort of
"
enclave
"
administered by the
pastor primarius
"
and his consistory. To a stranger
this appears a cause of weakness, and some change in the
arrangement seems desirable.
The number of congregations in the diocese proper is,
I believe, 235, though in many cases two or three of them
are under one pastor. The number of incumbents is 162,
and of com-ministri or assistant curates 81 ; while the whole
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