A Tour in Sweden in 1838: Comprising Observations on the Moral, Political, and Economical State of the Swedish Nation |
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ancient appears Baltic called capital character Charles XII church civil civilisation clergy coast common constitution court crime crop crown Degerfors demoralised diet dollars banco duty dynasty England English establishment estates Europe farm Finland fish functionaries Gefle give Glommen ground Gustavus Adolphus Gustavus IV Gustavus Vasa hemmans horses individuals industry island king labour lake land land of Sweden Lapland legislation living lower classes Majesty manufacturing mass ment middle miles military newspaper nobility nobles Norway Norwegian paid parish peasantry peasants peninsula persons political poor population present principle privileged provinces punishment reckoned religious river road rock rolled stones royal Russia Scotland side Sigtuna skillings banco social society soil spirit sterling Stockholm stones storthing Sundsval Sweden taste taxes tion trade traveller Umea Upsala vessels Wener Westerwick whole Wisby yearly
Popular passages
Page 10 - That in the Roman Catholic religion, there is a resisting principle to absolute civil power from the division of authority with the head of the church at Rome ; but in the north, the Lutheran church is entirely subservient to the civil power, and the whole of the northern people of Protestant countries have lost their liberties ever since they changed their religion for a better.
Page 125 - Yet, with all these exterior signs of a religious state of the public mind, and with all the means of a powerful church establishment, unopposed by sect or schism, to make it religious, it is evident, from the official returns of crime, that in no Christian community has religion less influence on the state of public morals. The just inference is, that no spirit truly religious has ever been generally kindled in this country ; that the Reformation, as far as regards the moral condition of the Swedish...
Page 180 - Leeseren — readers ; a numerous and increasing religious sect, which the clergy are attempting to put down. Here are the seeds of religious liberty. ' The regeneration of Sweden, her restoration to the rank of a moral nation, will probably be effected by a virtuous labouring population influencing a priesthood and upper class; the former too far removed by corporate and political rights from the condition of the flocks they should instruct ; the latter dissolute, idle, dependent on court favour,...
Page 10 - It is one of the most remarkable circumstances in modern history, that about the middle of the seventeenth century, when all other countries were advancing towards constitutional arrangements of some kind or other, for the security of civil and religious liberty, Denmark by a formal act of her states or diet, abrogated even that shadow of a constitution, and invested her sovereigns with full despotic power to make and execute law, without any check or control on their absolute authority. Lord Molesworth,...
Page 188 - Yet," says he, " with all their poverty, and all their striving for the most pressing necessaries of life, our parents never forgot or put off the teaching of us to read. Before we could well speak, our father taught us our prayers ; and these were the first thing in the morning and the last at night. Our mother spared no pains to teach us to read in a book ; and at five years of age I could read any Swedish book, and at six could give reasonable answers to questions on the chief points of Christianity.
Page 116 - Mr Laing goes on to remark—' There are two minor causes, both, however, showing a degraded moral feeling, which were stated to me as contributing much to this lax state of female morals. One is, that no woman in the middle or higher ranks, or who can afford to do otherwise, ever nurses her own child. A girl who has got a child is not therefore in a worse, but in a better situation, as she is pretty sure of getting a place for two years, which is the ordinary time of nursing. The illegitimacy of...
Page iv - ... in Europe. Norway received a new and liberal constitution, and has started with the freshness of youth, — a new nation, as it were, called suddenly into life from among the slumbering feudal populations of the north. Sweden received a new dynasty, — and slumbers on amidst ancient institutions, and social arrangements of darker ages.
Page 325 - Between 1830 and 1836, not fewer than two hundred and forty-two persons have been condemned to chains for this crime in Sweden. Who will say, that the inquisition was abolished by Luther's Reformation ? It has only been incorporated with the state in Lutheran countries, and exercised by the church through the ecclesiastical department of government in the civil courts, instead of in the church courts. The thing itself remains in...
Page 363 - ... their enjoyments, occupations, modes of living, and amusements, are so distinct, that they live like different tribes accidentally inhabiting together the same land. It is perhaps the weightiest objection to the late alteration in the administration of the poor laws ; and to the proposed alterations in the establishment of the grand juries, and of the local unpaid...
Page 302 - This ancient city is the most extraordinary place in the north of Europe. It is a city of the middle ages, — existing unbroken, and unchanged in a great measure to the present day ; — it appears to have undergone less alteration from time, devastation, or improvement, than any place of the same antiquity. The appearance from the sea of this mother of the Hanseatic cities is very striking, from the numerous remains of churches and ancient structures within a small space.