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CHUIiCH AND RELIGION.
325
5. CHURCH AND RELIGION.
From a superficial point of view the Swedes appear to be one of the
most homogeneous peoples in the world as regards church and religion;
for there is hardly one in a thousand of the population who does not
belong to the Protestant faith, while more than 99 % are members of one
and the same communion, the Swedish Lutheran Church. On closer
scrutiny, however, it will be found that a great many different religious
tendencies prevail. Yet it is probable that no Christian people of the
present time, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon race, is imbued with such
an ardent religious interest as are the Swedes.
Uppsala Cathedral.
Christianity was first preached in Sweden by St. Ansgar (829 A. D.), who
bequeathed the charge of his mission in that country to his successors, the Archbishops
of Hamburg and Bremen. During a later period (from the commencement of
the eleventh century) missionary work in Sweden was pursued chiefly by
Englishmen. Sweden, with her peasant population and her "Vikings, was a difficult
mission field. It was not till the 12th century that Sweden may be called a
Christian country. The actual work of church organization began with the arrival
of the Cistercians (Alvastra 1144); but this work, too, proceeded slowly owing
to the stability of the purely Teutonic social structure. Sweden became a
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