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

38 THE BAPTISTS IN SWEDEN.
in the kingdom,-that the professors of other modes
of faith should not be permitted to hold any public
meetings in houses or elsewhere; and they threatened confiscation of goods and banishment from the
country, to those convicted of holding such meetings, or of speaking injuriously of the religion of
the land. With such a decree in full force, the
means of crushing all dissent were always at hand.
Almost a century later, Laurentius Ullstadius,
a man of piety and zeal, was aroused to effort by
the condition of the Church and the people, and he
preached with much power and effect in Stockholm.
Such a breaking of the long repose of the Swedish
church was intolerable. The voice of the reformer
must be hushed. The clergy could easily makeit
appear that the stern condemnation of impiety and
formalism which he uttered was speaking injuriously of the religion of the land. He was accused
of sacrilege and other crimes, condemned, and sentenced to imprisonment and hard labor for life. For
thirty long years, with the faith and patience of the
martyrs of old, he endured the rigors of his punishment, until, on the accession of Ulrika Eleonora, a
general amnesty was proclaimed and he was liberated. The friends of his youth gone, a stranger in
his own land and in his own city, he was sent out
thus in his old age a homeless wanderer. iHe
craved the simple boon of being permitted to inhabit
till the end of life his prison cell. It was granted;