Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

Karl Oskar and Kristina got little sleep that night; they sat up talking to the young minister.

“I was told in St. Paul that Swedes were living near this lake,” he said.

“There are only a few of us as yet,” said Karl Oskar.

“I’ll look up all of them.”

“You say you resigned your position at home — who is paying you now?”

“No one. Kind people feed and shelter me, as you’re now doing in this home.”

Karl Oskar said that he thought that as a minister had spent much money on expensive schooling he ought to receive definite pay for pastoral duties.

“There’s nothing stated about that in the gospels. Paid positions for pastors are human inventions.”

God had nowhere ordained wages for ministers, continued Pastor Törner. The Bible said nothing about it. And Jesus promised no pay to his apostles when he sent them out to preach among all the people of the world. The apostles lived in great poverty. Christ had not designated parishes or bishoprics for them. He appointed no chapters, set forth no ecclesiastical domains. The establishment of positions for gospel preachers came about long after his life here on earth, when those in worldly power had taken over and falsified his teachings. In the present age, the official positions (the state offices) were the greatest hindrance to spreading the gospel among the people. But within a hundred years these positions would undoubtedly be discarded throughout the world, even in backward Sweden. In that country, religious persecutions had become so intense that protests had been raised by other, more enlightened, countries. 1

Karl Oskar and Kristina thought their guest was a most unusual minister.

“Have people in these settlements forgotten the Ten Commandments? Have they God’s Word with them here to read?” he asked.

From their Swedish chest Kristina fetched the two books which, together with the almanac, had accompanied them from their home village: Karl Oskar’s confirmation Bible and her confirmation psalmbook.

“I see that all is well in this house!”

Pastor Törner had visited several Swedish settlements where God’s Word was missing. In one settlement of nine families on the Illinois prairie he had been unable to find more than two Bibles; all the settlers had been physically healthy and thriving, but although he had been pleased with their worldly success he had felt depressed by their spiritual poverty; he had encountered grown men and women who remembered no more than two or three of the Commandments but he had aided them to the best of his ability. One poor old man, tottering on the edge of his grave, knew not one of the Commandments. And many were filled with hatred against Sweden and the Lutheran religion and lived happily in their conviction that the devil had ordained the authorities in that country in order to assure for himself all the souls there, without interference.

Pastor Törner had encountered no slackness in morals among his countrymen out here, he was glad to relate. He had already baptized many newborn children in the Swedish settlements, but only two had been born out of wedlock, and they had been begotten on board ship during the crossing, so those sins had not been committed here in America.

Kristina had long been sitting with a question on her lips, the anxious question, so important to her:

“Could you, Mr. Pastor. . would you be kind enough to prepare us for the Holy Communion. .?”

“With greatest pleasure, Mrs. Nilsson! I carry the Lord’s token with me in my bag. I distribute these means of grace to all who ask for them.”

“We have not enjoyed it for more than three years.”

“Couldn’t I hold communion for all the Swedes in this neighborhood at the same time?” wondered the young minister. “It would strengthen their spiritual solidarity.”

“We live so far apart here,” said Karl Oskar.

“And we have no church,” said Kristina.

Pastor Törner smiled kindly and waved his hands in Karl Oskar’s long sleeves, brushing away their objections with the greatest of ease. He had held communion in dense forests, on the open prairie, in log cabins and kitchens, in sheds and stables and cellars, on ox wagons, on riverboats — and a few times even in a church! What need had he, a poor God’s servant, of a gilded pulpit, an expensively decorated altar, when the founder of Christianity himself had preached from a naked mount, and his disciples from dim dungeons! Should he consider himself above Jesus?

He looked about in the room: “Could I be permitted to use this home for a communion?”

Karl Oskar and Kristina looked worriedly at each other, then they answered, both at the same time: “Our home can be used, of course. . if our simple log cabin is good enough. . of course we will. .”

“Thank you! Then we will invite the people and set the Lord’s table here in this house!”

And the minister waved his long sleeves with increased liveliness; it was already decided, then!

But it was late, their guest was tired and needed rest. Kristina said she would make a bed for Johan and Harald on the floor and let the minister sleep in their bed.

“Don’t awaken the boys for my sake, Mrs. Nilsson!” he insisted. “Last night I slept under a pine tree. I’ll sleep on the floor, as long as I’m under a roof.”

Kristina then offered her own and Karl Oskar’s bed and suggested they sleep on the floor. She had an old mattress cover they could fill with hay. Karl Oskar took the cover and went out to the barn where there was hay from last year. Outside, the rain still fell in streams. In the barn, he filled the mattress with the dusty old hay and carried it inside and prepared a bed on the floor against the hearth.

“An excellent bed for me!” said the young pastor.

But Kristina would not give in: they could not allow a man of the Church to sleep on the floor, in the fireplace corner, as beggars and hoboes did at home. They could not remain in their own bed and send God’s anointed to the shame-corner. It would be degrading to the Church; they would commit a grave sin. No, their best bed, their own, must be given to the guest. And she spread a clean sheet on it.

Their guest explained that he really was not a churchman, since he no longer held a position in the Church, but as their bed was offered him with a good heart he would accept.

And Pastor Törner undressed and lay down in the settler couple’s bed, where he fell into a deep sleep within a few minutes.

“Poor man,” said Kristina. “He was completely worn out.”

And so they themselves again went to bed. This time they lay on the hay mattress, in the chimney corner, while the minister from Sweden snored heavily in their bed. Karl Oskar still wondered about him; he had given up a good position in the homeland and was wandering here through the wilderness, without food or shelter. Otherwise, his talk and general behavior seemed to indicate that he had his senses intact.

Kristina felt a blessed assurance in her heart; a stranger had come to them in the night and promised her the Lord’s Supper. One night in early spring she had in her anxiety directed a question to the Almighty: What should they do about their sins here in their isolation? What must they do to save their souls?

Tonight she had been given an answer.

— 3—

Before Pastor Törner awakened the following morning, Kristina had found thread and a needle and mended the torn places in his coat and the hole in the seat of his pants. To have a minister walk about with pants that had a hole in the behind was a disgrace to the Church which she must at once erase. Then she brushed and cleaned his muddy clothes.

When the pastor awoke and put on his suit he hardly recognized it. He praised Kristina: “Give a woman a needle and thread and as much cloth as she needs and she can turn herself into a queen and her home into a palace!”