A Tour in Sweden in 1838: Comprising Observations on the Moral, Political, and Economical State of the Swedish Nation |
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Adam of Bremen affairs ancient appears Baltic body called capital Charles XII church civil civilisation clergy coast common condition constitution coup d'etat court crime crops crown Danish Denmark diet direct taxes ditto dollars banco Drammen duty dynasty England English establishment estates Europe executive farm favour Finland functionaries Gefle Glommen Gustavus Adolphus Gustavus III Gustavus Vasa hemmans horses industry interests island king labour lake land land of Sweden legislation living lower classes Majesty mass ment miles military monarch moral nation newspapers nobility nobles Norway Norwegian offence parish peasantry peasants persons political population postage present principle privileged proportion punishment reckoned road rock royal Russia Scotland Sigtuna society soil spirit sterling Stockholm stones storthing Sweden Swedish taste taxation tion town trade traveller 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 87 - 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 142 - 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 148 - ... alone, of all European nations, have outstripped the schoolmaster, and are so generally masters themselves of reading, and even writing, that parents in the lowest circumstances have no more occasion for a schoolmaster to teach their children these elementary branches of education, and also the church catechism, than they have for a baker to make their bread, or a sempstress to mend their clothes. Of the whole population, including even Laplanders, it is reckoned that the proportion of grown...
Page 150 - 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 78 - 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 350 - ... country, reduces the people as moral beings to the state of a soldiery, who, if they fulfil their regimental duties and military regulations, consider themselves absolved from all other restraints on conduct. This is the condition of the Swedish people. The mass of the nation is in a state of pupilage, living like soldiers in a regiment, under classes or oligarchies of privileged bodies — the public functionaries, clergy, nobility, owners of estate exempt from taxation, and incorporated traders...
Page 264 - 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.
Page 70 - ... and having schools and universities in a fair proportion, and a powerful and complete Church Establishment undisturbed in its labours by sect or schism ; is notwithstanding in a more demoralized state than any nation in Europe, — more demoralized even than any equal portion of the dense manufacturing population of Great Britain. This is a very curious fact in moral statistics. It is so directly opposed to all received opinions and long established theories of the superior moral condition, greater...