Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

In that autumnal night when Danjel heard his name called, he was reborn into the world. Until he was forty-four years of age he had lived in the flesh; now began his life in the spirit.

And so he resumed the teachings of Åke. Every Sunday he gave Bible talks to his house folk — wife, children, and servants — and if some neighbor happened by, he was welcomed. He went to church every time it was Holy Communion, to enjoy the blessed sacrament. Even during his work he said his prayers — in the field, at plow or harrow, in the barn with the flail in his hand. He always bent his knees while praying. Sometimes he cried aloud during his prayers, which caused people near by to rush to him, thinking help was needed.

Danjel threw the farm’s still on the scrap pile; not only did he discontinue the manufacture and sale of brännvin, he also stopped using alcoholic drinks, nor did he offer them in his home. He forbore swearing and the use of all profane language. Earlier he had sometimes been irritable and quickly angered — now his speech was always mild and gentle. Only about the clergy who had persecuted his uncle did he use hard words.

From now on Danjel considered all his possessions as gifts from God which, while they lasted, he must share with poorer brethren. He took into his house a few helpless creatures and gave them a permanent home in Kärragärde, where they received both food and clothing. Two of them were the most notorious people in the parish, known for whoring, drunkenness, idleness, and general debauchery.

Danjel used no more bolts or locks in his house, but left all doors unlocked at night. Why would he need locks and latches when the Lord stood guard over his house? Could a weak lock, made by human hands, protect his abode better than the hand of the Omnipotent? Those who locked their doors did not trust in God; they committed the trespasses of doubt and disbelief, man’s greatest sins.

To Danjel, as earlier to Åke, there were neither high nor low classes, neither exalted nor simple people — all were equal, equal as children in God’s family. He discriminated only between those who continued to live in their old bodies and those who were reborn in Christ, between those who lived in the flesh and those who lived in the spirit.

After his rebirth he no longer shared his bed with his wife. Because Inga-Lena still lived in the flesh, they were no longer a true married couple. Those marriages where the mates lived in their old bodies were joined by the devil, and the same was true if only one of the couple was reborn. If Danjel now had sought his wife, he would have committed adultery. He therefore told her that they no longer could have marital relations.

They must also abstain because of future children. A clean offspring must be conceived without lust, therefore it must be conceived by sin-free, reborn parents. Danjel and Inga-Lena already had three children, born while they themselves still lived in the flesh, and he felt great anguish for the sake of these children. As they had not been conceived in a true marriage, they must be considered the result of adultery, he thought. But he prayed continually that his offspring might through God’s grace be purified and accepted as clean.

Inga-Lena, the housewife of Kärragärde, was in a difficult dilemma. She was devoted to her husband — next to God he was dearer to her than anyone. She lived only to serve him, and followed his will in everything: by nature she was irresolute, relying on him for decisions; he was the lord and master. After his conversion she still tried to please him but found it difficult to accept his new ideas, and the consequent changes in their lives. She would willingly share her loaf of bread with a hungry beggar who might come to the farm. But she was filled with sadness and anxiety when the number of house folk increased by four people whom her husband invited and whom the house must feed. And when she also must receive into her home Ulrika of Västergöhl, the most detested woman in the parish, she spoke to her husband with mild reproach. She wished to do naught against his will, nor say that he was wrong when he allowed Ulrika and her illegitimate daughter to live with them, but what would others think or say when he housed in their home the Glad One, the great whore herself? Danjel answered: We must obey God above man. Let that woman who is without sin come here and throw the first stone at Ulrika.

Inga-Lena was greatly disturbed, too, when her husband repeated the doings and actions of the Åkians. Åke Svensson had aimed to establish a kingdom in which the Holy Ghost and not the King reigned, and where no one called anything his own, but all earthly possessions were common property. No wonder he had been sent to the insane asylum, where he had suffered a pitiful death after a few years — despite his being a young and hale person. (Though there were those who thought injustice had been done to him, who were convinced he had been tortured to death at Danvik.)

The fate of Åke had terrified all in the region, but no one was surprised; he who insisted that all were equal, and that they must hold their possessions in common and share them as brothers and sisters, such a one must come to an ill end; people were right in this.

Inga-Lena feared now that Danjel’s path in his uncle’s footsteps would lead to an equally horrible end. If you set yourself up against the ordinance of authority, you angered the clergy and came to no good.

But Danjel said that if you walked in Christ’s bloody footsteps you were bound to cause anger and be persecuted by the church, the clergy, and worldly powers as well.

She began to worry about their belongings when her husband no longer locked the house. One night thieves went into the unlocked larder and stole pork and flour. Danjel said they kept a greater store of food than God allowed them, and that was why He had not prevented the theft. But Inga-Lena did not comprehend this. God Himself in His fifth commandment had forbidden theft. It was her responsibility that the food in the house should suffice for all; henceforth, unbeknownst to her husband, she locked the larder door in the evening.

But her conscience bothered her each time she disobeyed him. The Bible’s words in Ephesians were clear and distinct: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”

Inga-Lena, furthermore, had a feeling of being a defiled and unclean woman when her husband deserted the marital bed. She had disturbing and painful dreams during her lonely nights; she awakened, and called on God for advice and help. She confessed in her prayers that she was a woman of only poor understanding; her knowledge was insufficient to comprehend Åke’s religion. She prayed God to enlighten her. Danjel prayed the same prayer.

And after a while the couple’s prayers were heard: the Spirit came to Inga-Lena and she experienced her rebirth. She came to understand that she must obey her husband, not her own inadequate intelligence. Danjel was right in spiritual things, she had been wrong. And so their marriage became a true marriage. Danjel returned to the marital bed, and again knew his wife.

By now there was a small flock of Åkians in Kärragärde. The paupers who made their home on the farm, as well as a few of the neighbors, embraced the Åkian teachings and saw in Danjel Andreasson a new Lord’s apostle on earth.

But his wife Inga-Lena still committed, in secret every evening, the gross sin of doubt when she locked the farm’s larder for the night.

— 2—

The happenings in Kärragärde were soon brought to the attention of Dean Brusander. It was said that people under pretext of devotion met at Danjel Andreasson’s, where he preached the Åkian faith — this heresy had again begun to spread its horrible poison in the parish.