The Baptists in Sweden. By Mrs. M.F. Anderson ...

STOCKHOLM. 519
from Yngsio, in the extreme south of Swe/dea, up
to Lulea, verging toward the Arctic Circle, the
preaching of the Baptist colporteurs has been the
power of God unto the salvation of many souls.
The church in Stockholm, under the joint pastoral
charge of Rev. A. Wiberg and Rev. Charles Msllersvard, numbered, in 1855, forty-five members; in
1858 its numbers had increased to one hundred and
forty-nine. In Stockholm, the meetings of the Baptists have not been disturbed by the authorities.
The country districts and regions more remote from
the capital have been the chief scenes of persecution.
Very arbitrary measures, however, are sometimes
employed, even in Stockholm. About a month before Mr. Wiberg's arrival in Stockholm, the court
preacher, WenshWm, accompanied by police-officers,
entered the house of Mr. Forssell, and baptized, by
force, his little child of six months old. This is
the same spirit which dictated the seizure of the
infant child of a Baptist near Stringnas. He had
refused to have his child sprinkled; the district
sergeant came, and by force took the child to the
cathedral, where it was christened with much ceremony. And it recalls the shameful oppression of
the earlier days of the Baptists in Sweden, when,
in 1850, the authorities came down on two poor
families, seized from each their only cow, and sold
them at public auction, to pay the district sergeant
for carrying off their children to be sprinkled, and