A STORY OF 
 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The Road to Jericho. 
 
 BY 
 
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 C. J. A. HOLMGREN, A. B., B. D. 
 
 “ Brethren what of the Night? ” 
 
 CONCORD, N. H. 
 
 The Forum of Conscience and Love. 
 1909 
 
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 Copyrighted, 1909, by C. J. A. Holmgren. 
 
 
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 Concord, N. H. 
 
 1909 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 Among the chief reasons for writing this book and placing it be- 
 fore the whole body of ministers, is to call their attention to the fact 
 that as the indignation of righteousness, the fundamental anxiety 
 to seize upon truth and justice was the mainspring of the Reforma- 
 tion, so there is still an irrepressible cry for truth and purity in life 
 and the Church. Here, in the United States, religion is commingled 
 with all the habits of the nation and all the feelings of patriotism, 
 so that here religion, so far as its vital power is concerned, is indi- 
 vidual and not a name or a creed, but purity of desire and deed, 
 Christly love of God and man ; religious truth being every man ’s 
 property and right. For such reasons, we find that the American 
 works on Moral Science are strongly espousing the maxim brought 
 forth by a former president of Brown University, that every man is 
 so created as instinctively to commit to the community of his fel- 
 lowmen the protection of his rights and the redress of his wrongs; 
 and his fellowmen, on the other hand, instinctively assume this au- 
 thority. 
 
 Such authority and power must exert its influence even against 
 the sins and errors of any organized society violating the social laws 
 of man. Neither can we wonder at that, in our American Ethics, we 
 are strongly reminded of that our Christian religion imposes upon 
 every individual subjection to the civil power, as a matter of moral 
 duty, on the ground that society is an ordinance of God. “Let 
 every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no 
 power but of God ; and the powers that be are ordained of God. There- 
 fore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God. 
 Wherefore, ye must needs be in subjection, not only because of the 
 wrath, but also for conscience’s sake.” 
 
 When, therefore, years of private appeals to one, or two, or twenty 
 men of any organized society, are futile, it becomes the duty of 
 society as a whole to secure to each individual the enjoyment of 
 rights already bestowed upon him by the Creator; each individual 
 also having the right to exhibit what he believes to be the truth, and 
 gain as many converts to his opinions as he can. At this juncture, 
 we read in the Practical Ethics of Dr. Francis Wayland : 
 
4 
 
 “If he succeed in changing the opinions of his fellow-citizens, 
 they will agree with him. If he, however, is unable to do this, and 
 cannot contend by force, what then shall he do? I see no other 
 course open for him than to do whatever he believes to be right, dis- 
 passionately and boldly, and suffer the consequences. These may be 
 suffering even to martyrdom ; but if he suffer in the cause of right, 
 he may in this manner do more to change the minds of men than by 
 the most convincing argument. Persecution is apt to react power- 
 fully upon the persecutor. Thus it was said in early days, ‘ The blood 
 of the martyrs was the seed of the church/ It is from just such 
 martyrdoms that the greatest and most important improvements in 
 society have originated.’’ 
 
 In submitting this work to the judgment of “society,” the editor 
 indulges the hope that the hurried efforts and labors bestowed upon 
 it, in the midst of anguish and persecutions, may answer the pur- 
 poses for which it is intended. 
 
 C. J. A. H. 
 
 Concord, N. H., March, 1909. 
 
If obedience to the will of God be necessary to happiness, and knowledge 
 of his will necessary to obedience, I know not how he that withholds this 
 knowledge, or delays it, can be said to love his neighbor as himself. He that 
 voluntarily continues in ignorance is guilty of all the crimes which that ig- 
 norance produces; as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a lighthouse 
 might be justly imputed the calamities of shipwrecks. Christianity is the 
 highest perfection of humanity; and as no man is good but as he wishes the 
 good of others, no man can be good in the highest degree who wishes not to 
 others the largest measure of the greatest good. 
 
 Dr. Johnson. 
 
 We see then that in so far as wicked men are by their wickedness miserable, 
 benevolence renders it our duty to reclaim them. And to such benevolence 
 the highest rewards are promised. “They that turn many to righteousness 
 shall shine as the stars forever and ever.” But this is not all. If we love 
 our Father in Heaven, it must pain us to see His children violating His just 
 and holy laws, abusing His goodness, rendering not only themselves, but also 
 His other children miserable, and exposing themselves and others to His 
 eternal displeasure. The love of God would prompt us to check these evils, 
 and to teach our brethren to serve and love and reverence our common 
 Father, and to become his obedient children, both now and forever. 
 
 The more hateful to us is the conduct of those whom we love, the more 
 zealous will be our endeavors to bring them back to virtue. ... It 
 would be easy to show that the improvement of the moral character of our 
 fellowmen is also the surest method of promoting their physical, intellectual 
 and social happiness. 
 
 Dr. Wayland. 
 
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THE ROAD TO JERICHO 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I am a voice of that life where darkness and terror reign. I am the despair- 
 ing cry of those who remain below and who have sent me to herald their 
 pain. They also long to rise to self-respect, to light and freedom. 
 
 Gorky. 
 
 The Arena. 
 
 In The Arena, with reference to the blacklisting-slavery of our 
 days, Mr. W. J. Strong, counsel for F. R. Ketcham, who obtained a 
 verdict for $21,666.33 against the C. & N. W. R. R. Co., asserts : 
 
 If a man who quits the employ of another can not get work in his occu- 
 pation without first obtaining the consent of his former employer he becomes 
 a slave. He will not dare to resist any oppression his employer may see fit 
 to impose upon him. His wages may be cut to the starvation point. He may 
 be called upon to work extra hours, yet he dares not complain, and he knows 
 that he can not leave and get employment elsewhere. If he protests, his 
 employer will say: “Very well, if you don’t like it you can quit.” The man 
 having a wife and children to support will bow in submission, knowing that 
 his master has him in his power and that he cannot leave and get employ- 
 ment elsewhere without the consent of his employer. This is slavery pure 
 and simple. This blacklisting system is also being adopted in nearly all 
 branches of corporate employment. It is one of the growing evils of the pres- 
 ent era of combinations and trusts, menacing the liberty of a large class of 
 our citizens. How long will it be before the laboring masses of the country, 
 having become the helpless tools of these mighty masters, will do their bid- 
 ding in the elective franchise? We shall then have a government of corpora- 
 tions, by corporations, and for corporations. The wage-earner who feels his 
 little children tug at his coat-tails for bread will fear to assert his manhood 
 and resist oppression. Can a republic made up of such citizens long endure? 
 Blacklisting is the chief agency in fostering anarchy. It destroys manhood 
 in citizens and makes them slaves. There must be a change. The love of 
 liberty is too deeply rooted in the hearts of Americans long to tolerate this 
 dangerous abuse. It is particularly against public policy because when men 
 cannot find work they become public charges, if not criminals. 
 
 The American Magazine. 
 
 In the September number of the American Magazine, with refer- 
 ence to the reasons for the falling off in number of students for the 
 ministry, a Western minister affirms : 
 
8 
 
 Occasionally a superintendent is of narrow calibre, autocratic, abusing the 
 authority entrusted him. Whom he will he puts forward, whom he dislikes 
 he puts down and out. Not only does he hold absolute sway in his own 
 state, but a postal to another superintendent can prevent any blacklisted man 
 from getting a charge or hearing in that state. Many good men have thus 
 been driven out of the ministry. Great good may result from an earnest 
 minister’s work, but he will pay dearly for his fidelity to duty. The powers 
 that be may blacklist him as an unsafe man. Many of his fellow ministers, 
 who never raised a disturbance or anything else worth mentioning, will 
 “knock” him and look at him out of the corner of their eyes half in pity, 
 half in blame. The startling decline in the number of students for the min- 
 istry is causing alarm in all branches of the church. Statistics show that 
 of American farmers, 90 per cent, come from farmers’ families ; of lawyers, 
 40; doctors, 30; bankers, 42; ministers, only 8 per cent. 
 
 Decoration Day. 
 
 Forsooth, this is not the first time “the Church,” wearing the name 
 of Jesus, is making a poor estimate of the rights of man. On Deco- 
 ration Day our heart bows down in grief over the silent forms of 
 300,000 men, concerning whose sufferings and dyings, it is deplor- 
 ably alleged: 
 
 Especially should the pulpit and the Church scatter flowers on the graves 
 of the Union dead, for these awful battles and this awful carnage were 
 planned by the blindness and weakness of religion. The pulpit was too weak 
 or ignorant to oppose slavery in its beginning. 
 
 As when the sanctuary is the tutelary saint and an amicus usque 
 ad astra of a heinous wrong, the sword and the battlefield must come, 
 the church is told on Decoration Day to bless the soldiers for having 
 by their blood atoned for the cowardice of the sanctuary, why, then, 
 should not the still available printing press be commissioned to affix 
 the wholesome gaze of publicity on the doings of scribes, trans- 
 forming the 20th century church into an institution for merely in- 
 creasing their own market value, etc., grievously deadening the in- 
 fluence of religion as a champion of civilization? For even here, 
 Wendell Phillips’ assertion is true, that only by continual oversight 
 can the Democrat in office, the hand entrusted with power, be pre- 
 vented from hardening into a despot. 
 
 In the history of England we read that in 1807 the gaslight was 
 tried in London, “and soon the cheerful blaze chased away forever 
 the tumultuous vagabonds who were wont, in the darkness, to insult, 
 to plunder, and to kill.” So, in another sense, already in the twi- 
 light of the 15tli century was dawning the great invention that was 
 to be so fatal to the dominion of the priestly bigot, and so efficient 
 
9 
 
 for breaking up separate centers of intrigues, etc. ; the press, to our 
 best knowledge, being the means by which, in the figurative speech 
 of the millennium, the worker of iniquity is to be cowed, so that, 
 under the Argus eyes of publicity, the coarse-grained Cain and the 
 fine-grained Abel decently may live and dwell together. 
 
 And as it is becoming an established fact, that, as in the case of 
 the good Samaritan mentioned in the Scripture, by nature some indi- 
 viduals are of a benevolent and scrupulous disposition, while others 
 are disposed to be regardless of the welfare of others, just as there 
 are mild, good-natured horses, while others are ill-natured; and as 
 the Spirit, the powerful restraint, may be withdrawn from any indi- 
 vidual, even ministers of less goodness of nature, why, then, should 
 not, as for instance a Monitor was built to turn the tide in our Civil 
 War, an expedient bureau and publication be established to turn the 
 tide in our present social skirmishes preceding the coming national 
 crisis, such use of the printing craft to be governed by the maxim : 
 
 Let us raise the fallen wherever we can, but without forgetting to protect 
 those who are adapted to support others in return. Let us help the helpers 
 first. They are of the greatest value in the economy of the social world. 
 Let us foster genius, especially the genius for doing good. 
 
 The Skeleton in the Closet. 
 
 Chesterton, one of the best known and popular critics of England, 
 alleges that in the world, as it is today, it is obvious and beyond all 
 discussion, that success goes not with merit, and that those triumph 
 who ought not to triumph. 
 
 Experto crede, what has been the line of action in regard to the 
 ever-hopeful and for the welfare of the people ever struggling, Rev. 
 E. A. Fogelstrom of the Lutheran Augustana Synod ? When weighed 
 down with overwork, “unduly laid upon him,” this warm-hearted 
 founder of the Immanuel Deaconess Institute and Hospital of Omaha, 
 Neb., had retreated to Thorsby, Ala., to recuperate, did not two men, 
 one of whom became, and still is, his successor as to office and stand- 
 ing, on an ostensibly friendly visit, induce him away from his wife ; 
 afterwards persuading her, and causing to be published that he was 
 incurably insane, “in a mild form.” 
 
 Was an up-to-date, impartial investigation as to his real condition 
 and needs conceded to him? Nay, were the doors to his own so be- 
 loved hospital and institution kept ajar to its noble-spirited founder? 
 Or, unconcerned to his high order of sentiment and intensity of feel- 
 ing, did not self-opinioned individuals, lacking the more delicate shad- 
 
10 
 
 ings of sensibility Fogelstrom, as a genius, possesses, exercise ex- 
 clusive discretion over this whole-souled meek Christian brother, to 
 deliver him unsuspectingly to a rival institution, and into the hands 
 of a Church against whom the Lutherans are constantly militating, 
 and in regard to which, from his childhood days, he has listened to 
 stories enough to make one’s flesh creep? When subsequently he 
 succeeded in escaping from this to him vexatious asylum, was he not 
 then subjected to be examined by a physician who, on account of age 
 and debility, by Fogelstrom had been removed from the staff of con- 
 sulting physicians of the hospital Fogelstrom presided over; and by 
 the aid of this jilted physician having locked him up in the state 
 asylum of Lincoln, Neb., was not the Douglas County Court, without 
 even seeing the man, called upon to declare him insane, though he 
 had never been examined by a regular insanity board? And this, 
 though a physician states, that if he were unscrupulous enough to 
 want to get rid of his wife, he could lock her up in an asylum, merely 
 by asking some “ broke” member of the staff of his town to testify 
 to her dementia, which he can claim is not so readily fathomed by 
 any one but himself, who has a more intimate knowledge as to her 
 strange acts; he at the same time promising to do his “broke” brother 
 a turn at some other time. 
 
 In advocating more rigid laws to govern commitment to State 
 Hospitals, Dr. E. 0. Crossman, the chairman of the standing commit- 
 tee on the insane of the state of New Hampshire, asserts : 
 
 Certainly any person who is suspected of being insane is entitled to a thor- 
 ough medical examination by the best physician in the vicinity, who has 
 standing, character and professional knowledge of insanity satisfactory to 
 the judge of probate or a judge of the Superior or Supreme Court of New 
 Hampshire. ... A full statement should be made regarding the pa- 
 tient’s physical and mental condition, together with a history of any prior 
 disease or injury, also a report of what the patient said and did in the pres- 
 ence of the medical examiners. 
 
 The superintendent of the state hospital should within two days after 
 the admission or commitment of an insane person send notice of said com- 
 mitment by mail, postage prepaid, to each of said relatives not exceeding five, 
 and to any other person whom the person committed shall designate. 
 
 Such and other things are in accord with the commitment laws of Massa- 
 chusetts and New York and are none too rigid. 
 
 * ‘ In Perils among False Brethren. ’ ’ 
 
 Recently released from his “prisons,” and broken down from such 
 tantalizing experiences, enough to frighten a man out of his senses, 
 and at present appealing to the Synod for an impartial investiga- 
 
11 
 
 tion and redress, was Fogelstrom, at the Synod ’s meeting last summer, 
 met with the consideration it behooves disciples of Christ to mani- 
 fest? Or, was his imprisonment, as he claims, merely a move to 
 give the “kidnapper,” his successor, the president of the Nebraska 
 Conference, the office and the place or home Fogelstrom had founded 
 and loved so intensely? And, if so, why can not everything be set- 
 tled in a brotherly spirit and with due regard for the wronged man’s 
 feelings or deep sense ? 
 
 Withal, is not the heartrending appeals in his printed circular, 
 “In Perils among False Brethren,” met with disheartening contempt, 
 a circular evidently printed after the pattern of my own round rob- 
 ins? Now, if the Church were to throw into the insane asylums 
 those who excel in the higher and finer manifestations of humanity, 
 and those who are merely oversensitive and nervous from overwork, 
 what would then become of our great improvements, and of the higher 
 manifestations of humanity? All honor to the dark-skinned people 
 of the coarse-grained virile texture ; they are needed. Yet, we need 
 also purity and goodness in its more delicate shadings, though so 
 often abused and misunderstood by the strong characters of the 
 coarse-grained type. 
 
 Are we forgetful of that he who does injustice must make right — 
 here or hereafter? “There being a law that follows him, and seizes 
 him at last and thrusts him into prison, where the uttermost farthing 
 must be paid. This is true, or there is no balance in the universe.” 
 
 Unbiased Testimonies. 
 
 That Fogelstrom was in possession of his faculties at the time he 
 was induced away from his wife is beyond a doubt from the many 
 testimonies rendered by unbiased parties such as Messrs. Ames Alt- 
 man, J. F. Peterson, etc. Nay, the well-known founder of Thorsby, 
 Mr. T. T. Thorson, testifies as follows : 
 
 Thorsby, Ala., Janaury 20, 1908. 
 
 To all it may concern: 
 
 This will certify that I have been well acquainted with Rev. E. A. Fogel- 
 strom the last twenty or more years, during which time I have had a great 
 deal of important business transactions with him. These started when we to- 
 gether laid the foundation of the now prosperous settlement of Wausa, Neb., and 
 then I first gained my confidence in his ability. More complete plans, as years 
 and experience have provided, were prepared together with him for the benefit 
 of our Lutheran Church just at the time Fogelstrom was so suddenly induced 
 away from Thorsby, April 21, 1906 (by two men), and our project interfered 
 with. All the time I have been acquainted with Fogelstrom I have found him 
 
12 
 
 to be possessed of sound mind and common sense. His useful plans should 
 have all encouragement, as they are valuable and he is able to complete them 
 if not interfered with. It has been proven so many things have been done 
 by him that seemingly were impossible for even the most favored men. He 
 has conceived many useful things for the Church and the people, and at the 
 same time sacrificed a great deal for himself. I have always found Fogel- 
 strom faithful and a true servant of the Church. lie is gifted with a won- 
 derful foresight and has a powerful enthusiasm so far above the average man 
 that they cannot grasp the first part of his deep and far-reaching plans. 
 He is one of the greatest promoters. I have not found his equal. He is con- 
 tinually straining himself in order to do the most good for his people. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 T. Thorsox. 
 
 This letter from Mr. Thorson cannot but remind us of how Rob- 
 ert Fulton, on account of his steamboat ideas, was mocked: “Poor 
 fellow, what a pity he is crazy!” The above closing remark, that 
 Fogelstrom is straining himself to do the most good for others, is 
 also strikingly verified by, for instance, the circumstance that when 
 my third supplement to “A Battle for Life” was sent to the minis- 
 ters of the Synod, he was the very first to assuage and comfort, in the 
 following letter: 
 
 Wahoo, Neb., November 14, 1908. 
 
 By dear Brother C. J. A. Holmgren: 
 
 The peace of Christ in all your anguish! 
 
 Yesterday, I received and read your circular with reference to your suffer- 
 ings. Though at present unable to render any assistance, I will nevertheless 
 write and remind you of I Peter 4 : 12-19. And let me tell you this is noth- 
 ing strange in our days of apostasy. I have for thirty-five years faithfully 
 and incessantly labored, so that through my efforts, under God, the Nebraska 
 Conference now owns $250,000 in real estate; and it cannot be but a most 
 bitter infliction to be subjected to such persecutions as my printed pamphlet 
 discloses. But such things happen nowadays in the Augustana Synod, all be- 
 cause of the royal Swedish envy. Our poor Synod is indeed apostatized. 
 
 As to the straits in the New York Conference, I can certainly sympathize 
 with you; and I know that many of its missionaries have had a hard struggle 
 to get their small salaries in time. 
 
 Being now unable to sufficiently provide for myself, I deplore my incapacity 
 to render you and others the aid that would otherwise be forthcoming. Are 
 we to get our rights, it must be prayed for. and down upon, us. Should I 
 succeed in this, in behalf of myself and family, then it may be possible for 
 me to do something for you and other brethren in distress. Having lost 
 $10,000 on the Deaconess Institution of Omaha, and being involved in debts, 
 nay, without a home of my own, my first duty is to endeavor to retrieve from 
 my own losses and injuries sustained. 
 
 Having for thirty-five years as faithfully as auy one served the Synod, it 
 is heartrending to bear with what is referred to on pages 150-152 of the last 
 synodical records, all on account of the influences exerted by the puppet popes 
 
13 
 
 in the Advisory Board of the Synod. What a shocking wrong and injustice! 
 God is certainly aware of the many injustices I and others have had to sub- 
 mit to during the past thirty years. If repentance and confession of sins and 
 forgiveness do not intervene such will cause more ill turns than they are 
 willing to believe. God help us all and His wounded Church in these and 
 the coming days of anti-Christ! This the supplications of your poor fellow- 
 sufferer. Though it is bitter to be wronged, such is, however, better than to 
 commit the wrong, a truth I am often repeating to myself. Leaving to you 
 as golden text Rev. 3:10-11, I am yours fraternally, 
 
 E. A. Fogelstrom. 
 
 The Express Law of God. 
 
 Though Fogelstrom had just written and published a splendid ar- 
 ticle on Prayer, and though, for instance, during his first Sunday at 
 the State Asylum of Lincoln, Neb., he was permitted to go out and 
 preach the sermon in the Augustana Synod church of that city, and 
 just as this little book or pamphlet was to be printed, a loving let- 
 ter came from one of the recently ordained uninitiated ministers, as- 
 serting: “This Fogelstrom is clearly not accountable for his actions 
 and doings; and cannot be taken into consideration.” 
 
 The word “clearly” may, of course, have reference to the circum- 
 stance that prevailed upon by the unexpected appearance of my 
 previous circulars, or affronted by the circumstance that Fogel- 
 strom ’s labors cannot be overlooked because of the $250,000 of real 
 estate he has procured for the Conference, the ministerial bosses have 
 advised the Synod to allow him $1,200 a year. 
 
 Nevertheless, his own statements in the printed round robin, “In 
 Perils among False Brethren,” do not only bring to view that he is 
 a heavy loser of property, etc., but that the way in which he has 
 been evicted and handled is deleterious to the future welfare of the 
 Synod and its labors among the newcomers to our shores, and re- 
 quires another adjustment and reconciliation than that, for instance, 
 at its last meeting the Synod still leaves the man under the contin- 
 uous discretion of the ones he is appealing against, and whom he 
 calls his kidnappers; the Synod even deciding that if the directors 
 of the institution, built by Fogelstrom, see fit to place the man under 
 a guardian, they have a right to do so. But, even if the Synod con- 
 siders Rev. Lindberg, the successor of Fogelstrom, a holy, sinless 
 man, Fogelstrom, nevertheless, considers this president of the insti- 
 tute to be deficient in the organ of conscientiousness, and for such 
 reasons the mind, the nerves, of Fogelstrom must be harrowed by the 
 thought that he is hopelessly in the very claws of his enemy, against 
 whom he has appealed to the brethren for protection. If, therefore, 
 
14 
 
 his mind should have weakened on account of the previous experi- 
 ences, how could the brethren expect that this man should improve 
 under such cruel conditions? 
 
 Withal, should we judge from Fogelstrom’s message of whole- 
 souled sympathy, love, sanity and purity, and should the author, of 
 this, judge from his own experiences made in the past, this word, 
 clearly tallies with the word express, when in 1743 the Church of 
 Scotland solemnly declared that “the penal statutes against witches 
 has been repealed by the Parliament contrary to the ‘express’ law of 
 God . 9 1 It being due to the great lawyers of that time the credit of first 
 stemming the foul torrent, it is, indeed, singular that the constitution 
 of the Augustana Synod debars a lawyer from partaking in the pro- 
 ceedings of this nature, while the Synod’s advisory board seems to be 
 powerful enough to grant a clique of chums full liberty to deal with a 
 brother in the same style as the Privy Council of Scotland was in the 
 habit of granting commissions to resident gentlemen and ministers to 
 examine, and afterwards to try and execute, witches all over the land ; 
 multitudes being burnt in every part of the kingdom, under these com- 
 missions, and under a regime in which the printing press and the re- 
 vival of letters had not advanced far enough in influence so as to 
 clear away the bulk of barbarous superstructures which had been 
 raised on the foundation of the Gospel. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 I am become foolish in glorying. Ye have compelled me, for I ought to 
 have been commended by you, for in nothing was I behind the very chief- 
 est of apostles, though I am nothing. 
 
 St. Paul. 
 
 To Your Tents, 0 Israel! 
 
 If, according to liis printed round robin, 4 ‘In Perils among False 
 Brethren,” this genial man of prayer is thus ignominiously treated 
 or victimized and handled out of tune with his sensibility and purity 
 of character, what a manifestation as to the ‘ ‘ Church ’ ’ making a poor 
 estimate of the rights of man! 
 
 In juxtaposition to this “skeleton” in the closet, our present intro- 
 spection merges intrinsically into exploitations as to what flag the 20th 
 century church unfurls, when prevailed upon to amend with reference 
 to individuals having not concentrated time and energies on a single 
 large institution capable of depriving coarse-grained antagonists of 
 their chances of entirely depreciating and disparaging; it being, as 
 a matter of course, comparatively easy to set at naught those whose 
 strenuous labors, and the results thereof, can not be taken in at one 
 single glance. 
 
 Thirty years ago, the author of this treatise was commissioned by 
 his father to go to America to pursue and finish the preparations for 
 becoming an expert mechanical engineer. The groans of suffering 
 mankind finally induced him to make America his home, and to aid 
 its citizens in rallying its friends and opposing its enemies. 
 
 Not satisfied with patching up a few holes rent by the brute in 
 man, he wished to strike at the very root of the evil, and to follow 
 Gladstone’s hint: “My only hope for the world is bringing the hu- 
 man mind in contact with Divine revelation.” 
 
 To this end, in 1887, he was finally induced to enter the college 
 and seminary of the Lutheran Augustana Synod at Rock Island, 111., 
 to prepare for entering the ministry. 
 
 The Lion and the Mouse. 
 
 Having graduated from this institute of learning and having faith- 
 fully and successfuly labored as pastor in the service of the Synod, he, 
 too, finds himself at last succumbing as the victim of ministerial con- 
 
16 
 
 spirators and blacklisted in a plot to ruin him. to get him out of the 
 waj r , these enemies working in the dark; the world being also ever 
 prompt to believe ill rather than good of a man. And though the 
 author of this is innocent of the charge of insanity and of undue 
 lack of tact brought against him, the bosses of the sanctuary, the San- 
 hedrim, consider it necessary to put him in the public pillory, to set 
 him up as a warning to others of my class not to act in accordance 
 with the principles of truth and justice, and not to rely on that suc- 
 cess goes with merit. 
 
 As in the story “The Lion and the Mouse” it is said of John Ryder, 
 the millionaire, so it may be justly said of these ecclesiastical leaders : 
 
 John Ryder had not been equipped by nature with a conscience. He had 
 no sense of right, or wrong, or justice where his own interests were concerned. 
 He was the prince of egoists. On the other hand, he possesses qualities 
 which, with some people, count as virtues. He was pious and regular in his 
 attendance at church, and, while he had done but little for charity, he was 
 known to have encouraged the giving of alms by the members of, etc. 
 
 With Judge Rossmore’s daughter, in this same play, we may here 
 repeat : 
 
 In the barbaric ages they fought for possession, but they fought openly. 
 The feudal barons fought for what they stole, but it was a fair fight. They 
 didn’t strike in the dark. At least they gave a man a chance for his life. 
 But when you modern barons don’t like legislation you destroy it. When a 
 competitor outbids you you squeeze him out of existence. You have no 
 hearts; you are machines, and you are cowards, for you fight unfairly. 
 
 But, to use the words in the same story, “Can such things be in a 
 civilized country ? Cannot they be exposed? Won’t the press, take 
 the matter up ? Cannot we show conspiracy ? ” “It sounds easy, 
 but it isn’t. I have had a heap of experience with the law, my child, 
 and I know what I am talking about. They’re too clever to be caught 
 tripping. They ’ve covered up their tracks well ; be sure of that. As 
 to the newspapers — when did you ever hear of them championing a 
 man when he ’s down ? ’ ’ 
 
 Though certain newspapers know too well what kind of leaders 
 there are in the church, where, for instance, hegemonical blacklisters 
 are influential enough to exempt a deacon or paramount parish 
 leader from the common preliminary studies, and lift him into the 
 ministry and a fat charge merely as recompensation for having sided 
 with the wrong side, regardless of the sufferings of their victims, they 
 would not give a downtrodden victim or “witch” a chance to reveal 
 that in every case where the people are not hoodwinked or subjected 
 to intimidations and threats, such witch would be awarded eommenda- 
 
17 
 
 tions tallying with the one rendered the author years ago while 
 laboring at Mt. Jewett, Pa.: 
 
 Here in Mt. Jewett the Augustana Synod is represented by a large and 
 flourishing congregation, and the eloquent pastor has proven himself to be a 
 most successful man in this field, and finds his services attended by people far 
 and near. 
 
 Here is another one from Gardner, Mass., July, 1908 : 
 
 (Extract from the Swedish New England Weekly, SJcandinavia.) 
 
 Last Sunday, as a thunderbolt from a clear sky, the news spread around 
 Gardner that Pastor C. J. A. Holmgren had handed in his resignation. At 
 evening services the church was filled with people, when Rev. Holmgren de- 
 livered a touching farewell sermon. He had chosen as his text the words of 
 Jesus, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Soul- 
 stirring were the words, and tears were visible in the eyes of both sides, the 
 pastor and the congregation. Nay, it came so unexpected, and in these 
 eleven months Rev. Holmgren has occupied the pulpit on Sundays he has 
 made himself exceedingly loved. The wish was entertained to have the be- 
 loved pastor move to Gardner, and we are convinced that he would have liked 
 to come. But we think that the straitened circumstances into which he has 
 been led, and perhaps other causes we do not know of, have driven him to 
 take such a step, as we know for sure that Rev. Holmgren loved our congre- 
 gation, our town and people. Whatever it has been that forced Pastor Holm- 
 gren to such decision, we deeply deplore it, and we are sorry for those who 
 are at the bottom of it all. As an excellent preacher and splendid orator, he 
 always had a good audience, and if he had come to this place and been af- 
 forded an opportunity to labor among us our future would certainly have been 
 a bright one. And that the people and the congregation are perturbed is the 
 most moderate expression that can be used; and what steps the congregation 
 will take at the meeting to be held at 7.30 p. m. on Tuesday, July 28, is hard 
 to tell. At all events, the correspondent extends his hearty thanks to Pas- 
 tor Holmgren for all his good will he has shown towards us here in Gardner. 
 Perchance it may be arranged so that, after all, we may secure him for our 
 place. If not, we all join in extending our thanks to Rev. Holmgren for 
 faithful watch and service. And do never forget that here in Gardner you 
 have hundreds of people who wish you success. 
 
 A few of such testimonials of the character of my labors are al- 
 ready printed in some of the previous circulars mailed to the whole 
 body of nearly 600 ministers of the Augustana Synod, testimonials 
 not only bearing by-plays to the fact that even what Christ did found 
 no favor with the Pharisees and self-conceited, while the poor and 
 those in distress had no complaints whatever to bring forth against 
 their friend, but that, for instance in Minnesota, where the prere- 
 quisites needed to fill a clergyman’s calling were granted, and after 
 
18 
 
 five years’ service in that state, the testimonials conceded from that 
 field of labor were such that Rev. Sjolinder of Tracy, Minn., writes: 
 
 From the testimonials awarded, it is manifest that your services here were 
 irreproachable, and to the satisfaction of the people and the congregation, so 
 that, in contradistinction to all rumors whatever, you are in possession of 
 splendid testimonials from here. I trust that these will be of service to you in 
 your afflictions and distress. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Many good works have I shewed you from the Father. For which of those 
 do ye stone me? — Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Origin of the First Circulars. 
 
 Having already-, since 1900, appealed to the ministerial bosses for 
 a human treatment, gradually I became aware that private appeals 
 were slighted, the doors of the Synod’s official paper also being shut 
 to an inevitable investigation. By the aid of relatives and friends I 
 therefore started to print my first circular, “For a Worthy Cause,” 
 dated September 1, 1906, and forwarded it to the parties more di- 
 rectly concerned, in order to suasively undertake a clement embryonic 
 research as to the statement of Dr. G. Nelsenius, the president of the 
 New York Conference, averring me to be without a single friend in 
 the ministry, he also stating: 
 
 You know, Holmgren, that I cannot do anything for you, as you have 
 against you all the conference officials from the time you served at Newport. 
 
 Withal, in spite of all my entreaties, all these years I have been 
 tabooed from a chance to regain a position and income somewhat 
 equivalent to the one I was induced to abandon in 1899. Nay, hav- 
 ing in the matters of support and destiny delivered myself up to the 
 sole discretion and good will of these ministerial bosses, merely since 
 my arrival at Concord, 1902, I have been dispossessed of about $6,000, 
 when considering my former income as pastor in Minnesota, 1899, or 
 about $4,000 when considering the average income of the fifteen pas- 
 tors of the Boston District; or over $2,000 when considering the sal- 
 ary of my Concord successor, Rev. Norden, whose income, however, is 
 the smallest granted pastors on the mission field. Still, Norden ’s fam- 
 ily consists merely of a wife and adopted daughter, all able to work 
 for themselves, while I have five minors to provide for, besides a 
 wife, flagging under the incessant ravages since 1899, when, over- 
 whelmed by obsecrations and entreaties of the president of the New 
 York Conference, Doctor Ahlquist, this exceptionally good woman’s 
 faith in the universal “angeldom” of the ministry was great enough 
 to overcome my hesitations to leave Minnesota by reminding me of 
 the fate of Jonas, disobedient to the call to go to Nineveh. 
 
 From the fall, 1906, to the fall, 1908, after deducting the railroad 
 expenses for my travels to the respective congregations, such as Gard- 
 
20 
 
 ner, etc., served by me on Sundays, etc., my income from this has 
 been an average of $17 a month, while Norden’s salary has been $50 
 a month from his congregation, according to the salary the Concord 
 parish is accustomed to grant its pastors, and which salary they would 
 have been giving me if granted the same moral and financial support 
 Norden is assisted to. During this time Norden is recorded as receiv- 
 ing from the Conference treasury $300 a year, except the first year, 
 when he got only $200. Notwithstanding my greater need of such 
 assistance from the mission treasury, not a cent has been granted me 
 during this time Norden has been in Concord, except that Rev. Linell 
 of Gardner told me that God will reward me for assisting him and 
 his parish at Gardner. 
 
 Notwithstanding all excuses to the contrary, it would be an easy 
 matter to prove that it depends upon the brethren in the ministry if 
 a pastor is to receive anything from the mission board of a conference. 
 Nay, though even Rev. J. Alf. Anderson of Brockton, Mass., a former 
 vice-president of the New York Conference, while, according to the 
 reports from the brethren, he had expressed his wonder how I could 
 get along and sustain myself in Concord, wrote to Frank Lindquist, 
 the leader of the Concord parish at that time, 1902, that the Con- 
 ference was too poor to grant me more than $75 a year from the mis- 
 sion board, still such letters could not keep this Mr. Lindquist, now 
 at Lowell, Mass., from writing the following letter to Doctor Nel- 
 senius, the present president of the Conference : 
 
 It seems to me that Pastor Holmgren has not received a just treatment by 
 his brethren in the ministry, as with the family he is obliged to provide for, 
 the conference ought to be in duty bound to grant him the same support 
 awarded other ministers laboring on the mission field. It seems to me that 
 when a congregation with about sixty-five communicants gives its pastor $600 
 a year, the conference ought to add a couple hundred, and with less than 
 $800 a year it is difficult for a pastor with family (even under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances) to get along in Concord. 
 
 All this, though none of these brethren has spent as many years as 
 I have of strenuous labors to prepare myself for my calling in life; 
 and though, in spite of the many obstacles placed in my way, I am in 
 possession of the finest testimonials and certificates, not only as a 
 graduate from schools, but also from my labors as pastor, and in such 
 places where I have reason to think that none of these leaders would 
 have been able to persevere as I have done. 
 
 Still my appeals for mercy have been met with cold contempt, 
 while, for instance, Rev. Norden has been assisted not only to become 
 my successor in 1906, but now on the verge of moving again, to 
 
21 
 
 calls from East and West, and in the month of May of this year is to 
 move to a parish in Wisconsin, he evidently having been here in Con- 
 cord to assist Aslev et comp., of the ministerial leaders, to remove 
 every prestige of appearance that I had been abused by the blacklist- 
 ers, he, for instance, even telling my milkman, the farmer I am owing 
 about $200, that the treatment I have received is justifiable. 
 
 Nevertheless, an investigation would show that during Rev. Nor- 
 den's labors at Concord there has been a corroboration of the state- 
 ment once made by the former Manchester pastor and Minnesota Con- 
 ference official, Rev. A. Carlson, that there would not be much of a 
 congregation at Concord if the song-leader, Frank Lindquist, were 
 away. Evidently to accommodate the plans or wishes of Rev. Aslev 
 of Lowell, Mass., in 1904 this Lindquist moved to Lowell; and in 
 March, 1906, the Concord deacons wrote to the pastors of the Bos- 
 ton District that the welfare of the congregation demanded my re- 
 moval from the place and that Pastor Aslev (his name being used as 
 a Judas kiss) may defer to render a more thorough-going account of 
 the real facts. 
 
 Still, in those very days there was a steady progression, so that I 
 had been able to reduce the debt of the congregation to almost noth- 
 ing, though, on account of a letter from Doctor Nelsenius, the records 
 of the Synod do not give me the credit for it ; just as, for instance, the 
 about 50 new communicants received to my charge in Minnesota dur- 
 ing the first nine months of 1899 were not recorded in the Synod's 
 records, owing to the failure of the Minnesota Conference's vice-presi- 
 dent, Rev. L. G. Almen, to fulfil his promise that at my departure 
 from Minnesota in September, 1899, as the acting pastor of my 
 vacated charge, he would see to it that these accessions would be re- 
 ported to the statistician in order to grant me that commendation 
 from those, my years in Minnesota. 
 
 So, even here in Concord, the communicant number was increas- 
 ing, it having almost doubled during my ministry. Tea, even after 
 I had been “ declared" as not accountable for my actions, March, 
 1906, I kept on taking in new good members, which goes to show that 
 all that was needed was that the Conference president would tell Rev. 
 Aslev and chums to tend to their own business and to leave me 
 alone, and thus to show that I was granted the moral and financial 
 support needed to fill my calling as minister. Such procedure would 
 have been the proper thing instead of refusing to grant me the $200 
 the congregation had petitioned for, to which petition, however, Doc- 
 tor Nelsenius replied: 
 
22 
 
 The Conference refused to grant the petition from the Concord congrega- 
 tion for aid from the mission treasury this year because it has come to the 
 knowledge of the Conference that you cannot labor any longer at that place to 
 any blessing. The whole Conference seems to know that there are matters of 
 dispute between you and the congregation, yea, that the congregation enter- 
 tains a deplorably bitter feeling against you. 
 
 Still, “these matters of dispute” were in the main caused by Doctor 
 Nelsenius himself, as he wrote to me that the funds of about $600 I 
 had collected among my American friends ought to be used for a par- 
 sonage, as the donators had intended it, and not to pay off the church 
 debt, as the parish leaders wanted. And as to the “bitter feeling” 
 he said was entertained against me because I kept taking in new mem- 
 bers, Doctor Nelsenius himself wrote to me that while I wait for a call 
 to another congregation I ought to build up the Concord parish as 
 much as possible, and, as I had done so all the time, I thought his 
 advice to me meant that I should add more members to the fold, in 
 spite of that one of the parish leaders had told me that the people 
 ought to come themselves and ask to be admitted, and not the pastor to 
 ask them. Furthermore, as to the bitter feeling against me for having 
 recorded the members I took in the first Sunday in January, 1906, 
 Doctor Nelsenius wrote to me that he had written to the parish leaders 
 that they ought to be happy that so many additions were made to the 
 fold, he at the same time stating that those members received on that 
 same Sunday could be taken in when I send! in my report to the 
 statistician before the Conference meet in April, and that they could 
 be included when this report was to be printed. 
 
 On the top of it all, when, at a meeting of eighteen of these Con- 
 cord leaders and chums, I had been “voted” out from the parish, the 
 president of the Boston District, Rev. J. A. Bernhard, was quick to 
 publish in the papers of the Synod the degrading news that I had 
 been discharged by the Concord congregation; he at the same time 
 mentioning how good and merciful the brethren of the district had 
 been towards a destitute brother, etc. ; another of the pastors of 
 the district also publishing that the Concord parish has a bright fu- 
 ture in store; owing to the fact that Rev. Norden is to take charge of 
 the Concord parish. But now, when Norden is to depart, after 
 leaving the parish in a debt of about $3,000, and after the Synod has 
 lost a comparatively good hold on the people, the president of the 
 Boston District, in his recently published report this year, is now silent 
 with reference to the Concord details, which leads me to ask why he 
 could not have employed the same tactics when I was leaving, some- 
 thing that compelled me to state in the third supplement : 
 
23 
 
 When our Synod sends out missionaries among heathens in Asia, etc., and 
 when, though our church edifice in Concord was plenty big enough even be- 
 fore Norden came here, the ministerial bosses permit this my successor et 
 comp, not only to spend the several hundred dollars I had collected from our 
 American friends, but also to erect an almost new edifice, or preposterously 
 enlarging the church, thereby unnecessarily involving the congregation in a 
 debt of about $3,000, evidently with the understanding that the bosses would 
 gradually make the other congregations of the Synod pay for it, thus there 
 being plenty of money for flowers, shows, etc., every right-minded person who 
 investigates the pros and cons will think that the Synod must have money 
 to burn and also a heart of stone to be so extravagant and still permit its 
 hard-working missionary, as in my case, to fare hundred per cent, worse than 
 its missionary in heathen lands. 
 
 The people are, indeed, not blind to such things; and there is no 
 wonder that, for instance, a prominent member of the Concord par- 
 ish could aver that I would have received a call, and the protection 
 needed, long ago, if the ministers were not arrayed against me, and 
 that “when ministers are such, how can anybody expect the people 
 to be better 
 
 Nay, the parish owners or leaders of Concord have shown me a 
 good deal more consideration than the ministerial bosses have. In 
 1904, when I perceived that for some reasons, personal or other inter- 
 ests, they wanted me to give room to another preacher, as is often the 
 case in our small parishes, especially when skulking, envious brethren 
 are at the bottom of the movement, I told these parish leaders that 
 if they gave me one year to accommodate myself to their cherished 
 wishes, within that time I would do all I could to secure a call from 
 another parish. 
 
 On the strength of such promise, I was given liberty to develop 
 the congregation and to increase its membership, at the same time 
 laboring hard to coax the brethren, especially conference presidents, 
 to grant me another call. Evidently on account of the blacklisting 
 ringleaders, my appeals were, however, in vain, except that I received 
 a call from the Illinois Conference to go to Munising, Mich., at a sal- 
 ary of $700 a year, in regard to which Eev. Linder, now president of 
 the Illinois Conference, wrote to me, that he did not wonder that I 
 refused to accept that call, he claiming that the Conference offers an 
 unmarried pastor a salary of $1,000 a year. 
 
 This Linder also wrote that the Ishpheming District, of which he 
 was the president, had requested that the conference officials renew 
 the call to me at a salary of $1,000 a year. The officials refused to 
 do this, they afterward informing me that from my letter of refusal 
 they understood that I was played out on account of the unnatural 
 
24 
 
 strain I had been subjected to from having worked as book agent, etc., 
 day and night to keep the wolf from my door; especially as, during 
 the operations on my wife and oldest son, I had had an almost super- 
 human task to keep the blacklisted at bay from smothering me. 
 But how could any ministerial board expect that, no matter how 
 strong or healthy a man otherwise would be, he could recuperate and 
 get over such temporary break-downs, if they withhold from him 
 a chance to live as the average man ? 
 
 Who, then, can justly wonder that I am kept in suspense ; and that 
 I am appealing to the bosses for a human treament? When, some 
 time ago, I asked a certain concern for employment in their service, 
 and they replied that they would at once discharge a man, in order 
 to give room for me, who can wonder that I shuddered at the thought 
 of needlessly taking another man’s work, when so many thousands 
 are idle and facing even starvation ; and while the Synod cannot find 
 men enough to fill the vacant parishes? 
 
 The president of the Minnesota Conference recently published that 
 thirty pastors are needed in that conference; and in the Synod’s 
 paper in March, 1909, Rev. Andeer of South Dakota, says that he is 
 trying to get two pastors where he is located, each pastor to receive 
 a salary of $900 a year, besides a parsonage for each (not to mention 
 the many gifts in natura, etc., such places generally bestow on a 
 pastor). 
 
 Though, for instance, Rev. M. J. Lonner writes me that I ought to 
 secure some kind of employment outside of the ministry, and that 
 none of the brethren cares to know anything of my experiences in 
 life, still, in conformity with the stand I am compelled to take, I 
 may here also refer to what took place some twenty-three years ago, 
 while I was still preparing for mechanical engineering. 
 
 Already at that time I had been strongly reminded of the truth 
 of my pious mother’s assertion, that a preacher’s mission on the con- 
 science of man is the only consummate and radical remedy, while the 
 almsgiver, the policeman, etc., can merely mend a few holes or rents 
 slain by malice and envy on a writhing, bleeding humanity. 
 
 One Sunday in 1886, I asked one of the pastors of the New York 
 Conference to follow me to a certain home in Brooklyn, N. Y., where 
 the husband had threatened to plunge a knife through his wife. The 
 good pastor replied, however, that he had had enough umbrellas 
 broken on his back already, and that such a woman has to stand the 
 consequences of having married such a husband. 
 
 When, in the evening, I arrived at this home, I found that the hus- 
 band had received a stroke of paralysis. Though a short time ago, as 
 
25 
 
 thanks for my admonitions, etc., he had given me a black eye, I was 
 now overfilled with joy to learn that the good work had made its im- 
 pression on his heart. Stretched out on his bed he begged me to 
 take his hand, whereupon he said, among other things : ‘ ‘ Holmgren, 
 
 I know that there is a bright future in store for you in the mechan- 
 ical profession; but, believe me, the world is in need of such men as 
 you as ministers of the Gospel/ ’ 
 
 Indeed, if I had followed my father’s wish, under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances, at this time I would have been a well-to-do, respected 
 member of the community. But having acceded to my mother’s wish 
 to sympathize with suffering mankind, even to the extent of becom- 
 ing a preacher, who, according to St. John 18 :37, knows that Heaven 
 counts witnessing to the truth the most important, I find that cruel 
 persecutors and blacklisted of the ministry are not only envious and 
 malicious enough to deprive me of my God-given calling, but even, 
 when I am no longer able to alone carry the burden laid upon me, 
 they are ruthlessly withholding from me the redress needed to defray 
 expenses and losses caused by their inhuman and unchristian acts, 
 and which expenses, in good faith and trust in the brotherhood of 
 man and ministers, my noble human creditors during the last nirue 
 years have advanced. 
 
 Nay, as Christ under arrest, poor and defenseless, I stand an easy 
 prey to conspiracies and efforts to render me so black and vile, so 
 hateful, that the influence of this book, etc., as disinfector of the 
 sanctuary is to be weakened and annulled, I being unable to secure 
 even a lawyer to ward off the attempts of these bosses to secure my 
 scalp, which they seem bound to have. 
 
 However, who can justly wonder that I am endeavoring to secure 
 a fair trial and a human treatment, that behooves a brotherhood of 
 ministers and teachers in morals and religion? 
 
 Is this a spirit of brotherhood, when, for instance, some years ago, 
 the president of the College of the New York Conference, Dr. Beck, 
 authorizingly and reassuringly “whispered” in the willing ear of a 
 New Sweden, Me., leader, that I have had troubles wherever I have 
 been ? Who can wonder that such ‘ ‘ eloquent ’ ’ whispers, together with 
 instigating letters from other “brethren,” such as the now deceased 
 Aaron, did reassure the New Sweden leaders and their coarse-grained 
 followers, that I did not even dare to say that my soul was my own, 
 and that, having “no friend among the ministers,” I would not ^are 
 to complain! Yea, the blacklisted’ influence at that place was so 
 great that, for instance, when the members had promised to give me 
 $100, at the same time stipulating that I should speak well of them 
 
26 
 
 and they of me, such peaceable finale was craftily annulled by a 
 deacon with whom the hegemonical blacklisters stood in touch. 
 
 These blacklisting teachers in morals and religion are forgetful of 
 the rules of ethics, by which we are forbidden to lessen the estimation 
 in which others are held, by any means by which they are brought 
 in contempt. We may here refer to the assertions made by the former 
 president of Brown University, Dr. Wayland : 
 
 No man can be respected by those to whom he is the frequent subject of 
 ridicule and scorn. It is a mean excuse for conduct of this sort, to plead 
 that we do not mean any harm. What do we mean? Surely, reasonable be- 
 ings should be prepared to answer this question. Were the witty calumni- 
 ator to stand concealed, and hear himself made the subject of remarks pre- 
 cisely similar to those in which he indulges respecting others, he would have 
 a very definite conception of what others mean. Let him, then, carry the les- 
 son home to his own bosom. 
 
 Nor is this evil the less for the veil under which it is frequently and hy- 
 pocritically hidden. Men and women propagate slander under the cover of 
 secrecy, supposing that by uttering it under this injunction the guilt is of 
 course removed. But it is not so. The simple question is this : Does my 
 duty to God or to man require me to publish this which will injure another? 
 If it does, publish it wherever that duty requires, and do it fearlessly. If 
 it does not, it is just as great guilt to publish it to one as to another. We 
 are bound, in all such cases, to ask ourselves the question, Am I under ob- 
 ligation to tell this fact to this person? If not, I am under the contrary 
 obligation to be silent. And still more. This injunction of secrecy is gen- 
 erally nothing better than the mere dictate of cowardice. We wish to grat- 
 ify our love of detraction, but are afraid of the consequences to ourselves. 
 We, therefore, converse under this injunction that the injury to another may 
 be done without impunity. And, hence, it is that in this manner the vilest 
 and most injurious calumnies are generally circulated. 
 
 Deprived of the needed moral and financial backing, it was, there- 
 fore, no wonder that in 1902, after two winters of hard labors at that 
 place, New Sweden, Me., I was discharged and thrown to the dogs 
 on the strength of such preposterous charges as the following letters 
 expose : 
 
 A True Statement. 
 
 To whom it may concern: 
 
 With pleasure I do make this statement, and consider myself duty bound 
 to do so in favor of truth and justice, after witnessing a performance of the 
 most unjust and cruel treatment of a Christian brother, that I can conceive, 
 by the deacons of the Lutheran Church of this town. The greatest curse 
 on this earth and in this life, is scandal-mongers. These evil disposed crea- 
 tures have set in circulation a rumor that the Rev. C. J. A. Holmgren, 
 the pastor of the Lutheran Church of this town, has, for the purpose of 
 gain, unlawfully and criminally milked my cows, thereby committing an act 
 
27 
 
 unbecoming a neighbor, a Christian and a minister of the Gospel. A meeting 
 was held by the deacons of said church, Friday afternoon, January 24, to 
 investigate this matter. I should blush to give the proceedings of the manner 
 in which said meeting w T as conducted, and the venom and unchristian lan- 
 guage used in connection with the absurd and childish charges preferred 
 against their pastor. All I do wish to state is the plain, unvarnished truth 
 in connection with this affair, and this I am most able to give, as I think 
 myself the most interested. It is as follows : In the summer of 1901, the 
 latter part of June, as near as I can remember, my cows broke through and 
 out of the pasture during the night. In the morning the milker found them 
 missing, and began looking for them through the woods and adjacent farms. 
 Between 9 and 10 o’clock in the forenoon, he passed the pasturage and met 
 Pastor Holmgren, who informed him that he had the cows tied up in the 
 barn, whom he found, together with several others, in his newly “paris- 
 greened” potato field, “last night,” and which he did not succeed to get rid 
 of. These cow t s were provided with hay in their captivity. Later, in the morn- 
 ing, he noticed milk streaming from the udder of one of the cows, and know- 
 ing that she suffered on account of being used to early milking, he milked the 
 cow, and put the milk aside in order to give it to the owner of the cow, when 
 he appeared ; which he did, but which my man refused : I will now state 
 that I consider Pastor Holmgren doing a humane and Christian act to that 
 animal, and I told him so, as soon as I heard of it, and permit me to reiter- 
 ate here, that I shall always consider it so. Pastor Holmgren refused com- 
 pensation for the damage my cattle had done to his garden and small potato 
 field, and we have been good friends and neighbors, both before and since, and 
 I know that I never for a moment considered that act of his inconsistent 
 with his character as man or preacher, and if Pastor Holmgren had not 
 mentioned the matter himself, there would have been no warp for slanderers 
 and evil-minded people to make a web to smirch his name. I appeared at 
 the deacons’ meeting on date above stated, and told these facts unsolicited 
 by them ; but so far as I can learn, the secretary failed to or wilfully neg- 
 lected to enter them on the record of proceedings, and in order to have a 
 full light on the subject I offer this to Pastor Holmgren to use as his discre- 
 tion dictates, and which surely will convince all unbiased and earnest peo- 
 ple that I consider him highly wronged and most unjustly treated by such 
 cruel and malignant slander. 
 
 Frank O. Landgrane. 
 
 New Sweden, Me., January 25, 1902. 
 
 To all whom it may concern: 
 
 As, in order to save the lives of cows, broken away during night, and graz- 
 ing on the unfenced “paris-greened” potato field and garden belonging to Pas- 
 tor C. J. A. Holmgren, it was necessary to confine and tie those who kept 
 on returning after having been driven away. As Pastor Holmgren, being a 
 newcomer to the settlement, was unacquainted with w T here these cows belonged, 
 and not knowing how long a time it would take to find the owners of these 
 cows, these animals were provided with hay. etc., and in the morning, at 
 the direction of Mrs. Holmgren, two cows were milked, and the order given 
 that the milk should be delivered to the owners as soon as found. Thus, we. 
 
28 
 
 the undersigned, the owners of these two cows, do hereby beg leave to tender 
 our cordial thanks and feelings of obligation to Rev. and Mrs. Holmgren for 
 their good will and acts of kindness, we wanting neither our cows to graze 
 on a paris-greened field, nor their yielding capacity diminished by letting 
 them go unmilked at regular intervals. Therefore, we also extend our 
 thanks to the Rev. Holmgren's servant girl (a 20-year old daughter of a New 
 Sweden farmer) that she advocated this step (she doing the milking in the 
 case of one of the cows), Rev. and Mrs. Holmgren, who have spent most of 
 their days in cities, being unversed in the care of cattle. 
 
 (Signed) W. Anderson, 
 
 Frank O. Landgrane, 
 
 Owners of the cows. 
 
 J. A. Lindquist, 
 
 Witness to the signatures. 
 
 Reasons for Sending out the First Circular. 
 
 That it is of paramount importance to a pastor to follow up such 
 inquiry as to whether he has any friends among the ministers of the 
 Gospel, is furthermore preeminently borne by the fact that, in 1902, 
 the president of the Augustana Synod, Dr. Norelius, writes me, that 
 to find places for ministers nowadays is chiefly in the hands of the 
 conference presidents, whose influence, however, is somewhat regu- 
 lated by the condition referred to in Rev. L. J. Film’s letter of 1903 : 
 “That it is impossible to get a call without being popular among 
 the brethren, I have understood long ago. ’ ’ 
 
 As a corroboration of this, Rev. J. T. 0. Olander writes in 1903 : 
 
 Rev. Dahlberg decided to remain at bis place, because Pastor Lind went to 
 South Bend, and vilified Dahlberg, who for such reasons did not get the call, 
 though the church council had put him up as their candidate. What a 
 brotherly act! 
 
 Among other instances, it may now suffice to refer to a letter from 
 .the Boston District’s former president. Rev. E. J. Nystrom, who had 
 just assisted me to the call from Concord, evidently that I may assist 
 him to receive the call from the coveted Manchester congregation, 
 whose leaders were related to the leader, F. E. Lindquist, of the Con- 
 cord parish, at that time losing members on account of the parishioners 
 having driven away their former pastor, he having fallen in love with 
 a comparatively kithless, but gifted, girl of the fold, Rev. Nystrom 
 writing (May 24, 1902) : 
 
 I told Lindstrom (a deacon and lay preacher, who also had tried to as- 
 sist Nystrom to Manchester, and who was later on, without attending the 
 schools of the Synod, etc., by, or through, Nystrom, lifted into the ministry 
 and a good charge), that, because of intriguing brethren, I lost the call to 
 a good charge, where, for many years, people have been waiting for a chance 
 
29 
 
 to call me to become their pastor. Though I received an overwhelming ma- 
 jority, 43 votes, while the other candidates, in spite of the eager exertions 
 to muster votes, got 26, the presiding pastor alleged that I could not be con- 
 sidered. The congregation kept on until 11.30 p. m., when many got tired 
 out and went home. Next day, several wrote to me, and bitterly bewailed 
 the injustice of the presiding pastor. This was done by one, who, in all 
 brotherly love and amity, I had assisted to a good charge in the West. 
 
 The Conscience of the New York Conference. 
 
 When, in 1899, I arrived from my well-earned good position in 
 Minnesota to Newport, ’R. I., the very greeting I at first received at 
 the landing place was from a leading member of the Newport par- 
 ish, who exclaimed that the conference officials had committed a wrong 
 in inducing me with such a large family to move to such a small mis- 
 sion as Newport. This first greeting sounded in my ears as the un- 
 hushed, spontaneous voice of the conscience of the New York Con- 
 ference, greeting the newcomer from Minnesota, where he had just 
 • added about fifty new communicant members to the flock, and where 
 he had just sold his horses, implements, furniture, etc., far below cost 
 in order to comply with the wishes and exactions of the officials of 
 the New York Conference. 
 
 A few weeks after my arrival at Newport, Rev. T. 0. Linell, then 
 at Malden, Mass., voiced this conscience of the conference by at 
 once securing me a call from the more promising field of Everett, 
 Mass., he at the same time telling me that the conference has far 
 more important missions to spend money on than on this compara- 
 tively insignificant place as Newport is, on which the conference ‘ ‘ has 
 already thrown away too much money.” 
 
 At this juncture, however, the following thundering letter arrived 
 from the conference president, Dr. Ahlquist: 
 
 In the name of the conference, I forbid you to move or to accept any other 
 call before next conference meeting; and if you move, I shall have you ar- 
 raigned and called to account for such a lost to shame and unchristian act. 
 The officials of the conference did not call you to Newport, that by such a 
 base act you should render the death blow to all Lutheran mission at that 
 place. It is a despicable performance of Linell and Johansson (of Boston) 
 to try to seduce you to commit such treachery against the conference and 
 its officials. 
 
 If in reality and in secret, Ahlquist and chums were backing up 
 Linell in these endeavors to get me switched off at once from the dis- 
 astrous consequences of remaining at Newport, they should have told 
 me so, as I could hardly imagine that, in contradistinction from what 
 came to me from other sources, Ahlquist ’s letter would merely be a 
 
30 
 
 hint to impress me to always own that his conscience, in the matter 
 of taking me away from my good position in Minnesota, is clean and 
 pure as the lily. 
 
 At any rate, on the strength of his outspoken letter, I considered 
 myself debarred from the splendid opportunity of somewhat retriev- 
 ing the great losses sustained owing to the fact that Ahlquist had 
 employed similar language when he induced me to capitulate from my 
 splendid charge at Minnesota, in regard to which Rev. J. T. 0. 
 Olander wrote to me : 
 
 I cannot understand how you could go to Newport ; but I presume you did 
 not know anything about the place. 
 
 So, also, the statistician of the New York Conference, Rev. K. N. 
 Rabenius, of Pontiac, R. I., assured me, that if, instead of having 
 directed my initial inquiries to another former schoolmate (Rev. K. K. 
 Broberg, then the secretary of the conference), I had questioned Ra- 
 benius, in the strongest terms possible he would have warned me 
 from going to Newport, no matter if, during the period of a few years, • 
 members of my family were to undergo operations, making it more 
 desirable to be nearer home, instead of, as was the case in Minnesota, 
 traveling after my horses about 4,000 miles a year between my wide- 
 spread, distant parish annexes. 
 
 Having a bulky household to move, and already settled down in 
 Newport, and in compliance with Ahlquist ’s request or outspoken 
 letter, I decided to remain at Newport, which I did for thirteen 
 months, merely to experience that the millionaires, to whom I had to 
 appeal for money for the church debt and even for my own salary, 
 considered that this mission was a waste of money. Having thus sat- 
 isfied my own conscience, I ultimately left the place and went to 
 New Sweden, Me., where a student preacher had secured a refuge 
 for me. 
 
 Ever since that time, I have been constantly reminded that Ahl- 
 quist and chums fully agree in that the voice of the conference-con- 
 science ought to be hushed by throwing me entirely to the dogs. 
 So, for instance, in 1903, when, on account of being thus entirely 
 cleaned out, sickness at. home, the members of my family being unable 
 to stand the persecutions, and thus, on account of the wolf at the door, 
 
 I could not attend the conference meeting in March of that year, my 
 letter asking for an excuse having, perhaps, gone astray in the mails, 
 the following threatening words arrived from the president : 
 
 In accordance with resolutions carried at the conference meeting at Peale, 
 Pa., I do herewith solemnly warn you because of your great default in not 
 
31 
 
 sending in even an excuse for your absence from said meeting, and I do 
 hereby warn you as having trespassed upon the conference constitution, Art. 
 I, Sec. 8. 
 
 Ex officio, L. P. Ahlquist. 
 
 Yea, in two of the annual records of the conference, it is falsely 
 alleged that I have been absent without sending in an excuse. More- 
 over, in this reign of terror, A. D. 1905, though having struggled 
 hard to attend every meeting of the Boston District, the following 
 letter came from Rev. Aslev, of Lowell, Mass., a tool of the bosses : 
 
 Don’t forget to attend the next meeting of the district. That is my broth- 
 erly advice. I don’t want to say any more; but remember Rosenquist, who 
 was deposed for merely being contumacious. 
 
 For over sixteen years this Rosenquist had served the Saron Luth- 
 eran church of Chicago, 111., until in the spring of 1905, he was de- 
 posed by the officers of the Illinois Conference. 
 
 Wild and Unbridled Enemies. 
 
 In 1901, soon after I had left Newport, and was stationed at New 
 Sweden, Me., intimidating letters arrived from the conference presi- 
 dent, requesting me to defray part of the heavy expenses that had 
 been required for my consummate efforts to solicit funds for pay- 
 ing the church debt of Newport; threats rendering it of the greatest 
 moment to lose no time in preparing a statement and a petition to the 
 whole conference for protection. In such heated contest, no respite 
 was left to look after other important matters, so that, for instance, 
 $50 was lost as a result of a misunderstanding, when claiming dam- 
 ages from a contemporaneous fire in the New Sweden parsonage. 
 
 The time spent for drawing up this consummate appeal for protec- 
 tion against Ahlquist ’s threats, following close upon the defying 
 snarls from Rev. Kjellstrand, who was the pastor of the two Provi- 
 dence deacons who had built the Newport church, and who also had 
 been appointed by the ‘ ‘ chums ’ * to audit my money account from the 
 Newport time, changed, it is true, the demeanor of Ahlquist, but the 
 appeals to assign some redress for the many heavy losses sustained 
 from the time I was induced to capitulate from a good charge at Min- 
 nesota, did not meet with the needed consummation. 
 
 True enough, the pastors of the Providence district decided to ask 
 the conference to grant me $150 to cover part of the moving expenses, 
 but the statistician of the conference wrote that to bring this matter 
 before the conference would mar and undermine my future career 
 
32 
 
 in the Synod. Another member of that district also stated that the 
 general opinion of the brethren was that it would be unwise of me 
 to take up the matter before the conference. 
 
 Consequently, I let go my hold, believing that these warnings in- 
 dicated that, even if some would play off as if they were down on 
 one or two of the officials, in the long run they would all unite in 
 letting me have the worst of it, the condition of an Augustana* pas- 
 tor in a predicament seeming to be about the same as that of earth- 
 quake victims, at the mercy of rapacious marauders, taking advan- 
 tage of the prevailing chaos and the lack of restriction, to mulct and 
 strip the unfortunate. 
 
 Thus, ten years ago, a former Augustana pastor, Rev. J. Seleen, 
 wrote to me: 
 
 Wild and unbridled enemies defying the constitution and by-laws of the 
 Synod, at times without any restrictions whatever, are permitted to perse- 
 cute the most faithful servants and ministers of our free church. When one 
 has been wearing out himself in the service of the Synod, one is thrown out 
 in the world, without bread, without home or shelter. If one has been pro- 
 pitious enough to save a little of the petty salary, mostly doled out irreg- 
 ularly and with a low grumble, it is well and good; if not, one is tossed to 
 seek shelter somewhere, and few people, if any, take those things to heart. 
 That such things cannot end well, is beyond a doubt. The missions, schools 
 and everything else are deep in debts. Are the people poorer? No, the re- 
 verse. But the love and the spirit of brotherhood are in course of extinc- 
 tion and death. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Giant Despair beats him, leaves him in a poisonous dungeon without 
 food, finally gives him daggers and cords and advises him suicide. But 
 Christian suddenly remembers a key in his bosom, called Promise, which 
 will open any lock in the castle. — Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 The Battle for Life Circular. 
 
 Being entirely at the mercy of these, my ministerial bosses, I found 
 at last that they were on the spring to taboo me out of my calling, 
 as Rev. Aslev’s letter indicates, on such paltry excuse that I am un- 
 able to attend every monthly meeting of the Boston District with its 
 monthly outlay of $2 ; they not considering that my willingness is 
 so great that at every one of the weddings of brethren in the district 
 the customary tax of $2 for a wedding present has been paid by me, 
 with the sole exception of the last one. This, in spite of that, while 
 the brethren in general were taking advantage of the prosperous 
 times, my home has been devastated, so that as soon as I would secure 
 my rights as a human being, and my debts paid, which debts, through 
 almost superhuman efforts on my part, have been kept at a minimum, 
 and not in proportion to what we have been so unmercifully deprived 
 of, my first duty will be to try to furnish up a new home for my 
 family. 
 
 At any rate, when my first circular, “For a Worthy Cause,” 
 proved too lenient to bring about the desired or needed understand- 
 ing, the large circular, “A Battle for Life,” with supplements fol- 
 lowed. At this juncture, one of the Minnesota pastors, Rev. E. 
 Hedeen, of New London, Minn., wrote: 
 
 Brother Holmgren is not the only Augustana pastor run down by his breth- 
 ren. When you write again in the open, name the persons who have been in- 
 triguing against a brother. The Augustana Synod is organized to be an 
 Evangelical free church. All puppet popes, even the one who keeps the Sy- 
 nod’s paper, . . . stana, we can knock on the head and the fingers. No 
 one has a right to oppress a brother who honestly works according to his call- 
 ing and office. Commit yourself to the Great Shepherd and His care. He de- 
 fends both you and the principles at stake. 
 
 Such letters and assurances are, indeed, enough to prove that these 
 my circulars are the despairing cry in the wilderness of those who re- 
 main below, and who have sent me to herald their pain. If the church- 
 
84 
 
 people, or their leaders, should really be a class by themselves, exempt 
 from observing human and Christian laws, then the whole church 
 would soon deteriorate, until there were no remedy; the sanctuary 
 dragging the whole people to destruction. Indeed, it would be of the 
 most disastrous consequences, if blacklisting teachers in morals and 
 religion would fall back upon the cognizance as to jugglers being out- 
 side of the jurisdiction of civil law; it being the prerogative of the 
 snaky, twisting and hard to deal with animals, to crawl through the 
 net handled by the authorities to catch the wild game. 
 
 Then the church would soon relapse into the state or condition 
 it was at the time of Henry II, when men, whose only claim of 
 sanctity was that they wore a black gown or had a shaven head, 
 claimed the right of being judged by the ecclesiastical tribunal; the 
 result being that many criminals who deserved to be hanged escaped 
 with a slight punishment, as when the priest named Brois had com- 
 mitted an unprovoked murder. When King Henry commanded him 
 to be brought before the king’s court, the archbishop, Becket, inter- 
 fered and ordered the case to be tried by the bishop of the diocese, 
 who sentenced the murderer to lose his place for two years. History 
 tells us that then Henry proceeded to put the constitutions into ex- 
 ecution without fear or favor. A champion of the church of that day 
 says : 
 
 Then was seen the mournful spectacle of priests and deacons who had 
 commited murder, manslaughter, robbery, theft and other crimes, carried in 
 carts before the commissioners and punished as they were ordinary men. 
 
 Magnuson ’ s Time. 
 
 In January, 1892, after my present successor in Concord, Rev. 
 Norden, then pastor at Ridgeway, Pa., had prevailed upon me to 
 abandon a most promising future in the largfc Jamestown congrega- 
 tion, where I then had worked a year, and while laboring at Mt. 
 Jewett, Pa., I received the following letter from Rev. M. J. Englund, 
 then superintendent of the New York Conference Orphans’ Home at 
 Jamestown, N. Y., but now one of the editors of the Synod’s organ, 
 August ana: 
 
 In Augustana and Fosterlandet, Rev. A. A. Magnuson is criticised for hav- 
 ing partaken in the church dedication held by the Methodists and the Congre- 
 gationalists. In his ire, Magnuson accuses you as the author of that criti- 
 cism. Should you receive a letter from him, or should he remonstrate in the 
 papers, disregard it entirely. If Brother Holmgren is the author of that crit- 
 icism, such will impart honor on you, as an indication of your sanity as a 
 churchman. If you are not the author, it is best for you not to make any 
 
35 
 
 rejoinders, as Magnuson’s time will come some day. I keep it all enshrined 
 in my memory. Holmgren does not need to fear him, as I shall know how to 
 reply to his remonstrances. Unrighteousness is a bad seed to sow. 
 
 This avowal that Magnuson’s time will come some day and that 
 Englund had stored up certain things in his memory, evidently refer 
 to the circumstances that Magnuson, who at that time was pastor of 
 the Second Lutheran Church at Jamestown, and one of the directors 
 of the Orphans’ Home, was opposed to Englund being superintendent 
 of the home, and that for such reasons Magnuson was a crow to be 
 plucked. Why this man was finally impelled to resign from the min- 
 istry is not known to many more than a former president of the Iowa 
 Conference, which chum of Englund had the case in charge, Dr. 
 Holmes. 
 
 To me it is beyond a doubt that Englund himself was the author 
 of that criticism as there are other similar articles by him published 
 against other brethren, who have more recently partaken in Union 
 meetings, etc. ; his attacks being made in the style as the one he made 
 on the Anglican Church, when at the English archbishop’s visit and 
 the bishops’ parade in Boston, Mass., he insinuatingly connected this 
 event with that it looked as if not one cow, but the whole barn, was 
 let loose. 
 
 Moreover, in 1891, Dr. Evald of Chicago, 111., asserted that it pained 
 him to have read in Fosterlandet some unfair comments in regard to 
 a fair arranged by me at Jamestown, N. Y., at which about $1,000 
 was realized; Englund being evidently the author of even that criti- 
 cism, as it has a striking resemblance to his remarks before the as- 
 sembled multitude at his inaugural address opening that fair, when he 
 remarked that there was a certain man present who wants to have the 
 credit for this successful event. I remember the tears filling the eyes 
 of my wife at such construction put on the motives of my labors. 
 
 B. D. and T. F. 
 
 So also, in 1908, on his death bed, Rev. Linell remarked that it was 
 here in Jamestown 18 years ago, in the company of Englund, though 
 nothing irrational in my conduct could be detected, Linell was sur- 
 prised to hear for the first time that I was deranged. 
 
 Thus, while Englund ’s backer and patron, the former president of 
 the New York Conference, since 1900 the doctor in dogmatics, and 
 part of this time also vice-president of the school at Rock Island, 
 Dr. C. E. Lindberg, paved the way for conferring on the graduating 
 seminarists, after my time, the title B. D. to shine in the records of 
 
36 
 
 the Synod, to my person there was to be attached the title T. F. 
 (Thou Fool). 
 
 This, in spite of that there were worthy men both before and after 
 “Anno Domini One,” and that when I pursued the noiseless tenor of 
 my way and in 1892 for the second time enrolled as a student in the 
 seminary, it was with the explicit understanding that I was not to be 
 hoodwinked, but that I was taking in every one of the studies for ac- 
 quiring the protection of a B. D. mark, and not that kind of a di- 
 ploma, which, only at the time of my ordination reassuringly declare# 
 me to be a graduate from the school, popped up to be inadequate for 
 showing its face before the uninitiated public; and all this though, 
 tKrough strenuous labors, and not through syncophancy, I took the 
 studies seriously and made myself worthy of the highest marks in 
 general scholarship, both in the college and the seminary. 
 
 In the first circular, “For a Worthy Cause/ ’ nay, even before, 
 these things were alluded to, but with no other results than that the 
 following mock 1 1 diploma ’ ’ was sent from the boundaries of the Prov- 
 idence district, where at that juncture, 1905, Englund was pastor at 
 Greenwich, R. I. : 
 
 Rev. C. J. A. Holmgren, Concord, N. H. 
 
 Dear Sir : With great pleasure I herewith have the honor of informing you 
 that the faculty of Brown University has decided to confer upon you the de- 
 gree of B. D. Your ability as a preacher and your immense knowledge of 
 language and sciences is widely known. Accept, therefore, this degree. 
 
 Ex officio, W. H. Eustis, Secretary. 
 
 The Whining Mice. 
 
 Thus, though there are pastors, who, as students at the Synod’s 
 school at Rock Island, 111., could enjoy teasing and vexing the school 
 president’s demented son, until they had him raving and cursing, and 
 
 yi 1 v 
 
 though there coarse-grained natures of the same type as the 
 
 Dutch priest of whom Professor Bruggmans of Leyden relates, that 
 he was endowed with such great desire to kill and see killed, that he 
 became chaplain of a regiment solely to have opportunity of seeing 
 men destroyed in battle ; and though there must be men in the Synod, 
 who would have great satisfaction to see a brother smashed and slain, 
 of course “in a mild form,” and not so spectacular as when, in the 
 press-devoid days, Bishop Hatto of Germany invited the poor to lunch 
 in a big barn, and, having set on fire this enclosed and picketed place, 
 ejaculated, “Listen how the mice are whining!” — yet, on the other 
 hand, and in spite of Rev. J. A. Anderson’s assertion that I am whin- 
 
37 
 
 ing, it is impossible for a man endowed with a large benevolence and 
 conscientiousness to not believe in the brotherhood of man, and that 
 the majority of the brethren cherish a good will towards humanity. 
 The whole race being within the circle of my affections, I am con- 
 strained to prevail upon the sanctuary to amend, as by resisting op- 
 pression, atrocities against other human beings are thereby checked 
 and hindered, thus mitigating the sufferings of bleeding humanity. 
 To love mankind must be of decidedly more importance that to love 
 the bossism of the Synod. 
 
 Reasons for Sending Out the Second and Third Supplements. 
 
 August 1, 1907, on the strength of stretched reports from my Con- 
 cord successor, Rev. Norden, the following threatening letter, ex 
 officio, arrived from the Boston District, Rev. J. A. Bernhard, of Ever- 
 ett, Mass. : 
 
 Let me know if, since you left the congregation in Concord, you have joined 
 another Swedish Lutheran Augustana congregation. Apparently, you do evil 
 to your children, to yourself, and to God’s work among our people, by send- 
 ing your children to the Sunday school of the Episcopal Church. Take a 
 brotherly advice. . 
 
 As such rumors and reports were apt to check and retard the 
 forthcoming of the nearly $1,200 promised me by the pastors after I 
 had sent out my circular “A Battle for Life,” with its first supple- 
 ment, I hastened to send out the second supplement, dated September 
 27, 1907, which was referring to the fact that my boys merely attended 
 the choir of the Episcopal Church. This supplement was, however, 
 followed by threats from the conference officials that they will have 
 me deposed until next general meeting of the conference (April, 1908) 
 if I should dare to send out any more round robins ; this, in spite of 
 a man’s right to defend himself. 
 
 Complying herewith, I waited still another precious year for the 
 blacklisted to declare off the bush-fight, and to grant me the succor 
 needed. Nevertheless, according to the Norse proverb, that while 
 the better man waits, the ugly one strikes, the blacklisted seem to 
 have been prying into every hole and corner to hunt for evidence 
 suitable for countenancing an official kick out of my calling. 
 
 Ignoring the explanation in my second Supplement, Dr. Nelsenius, 
 the conference president, as a last resort, sticks like ivy to the mere 
 circumstance that two of my sons attend the choir of an Episcopal 
 Church. Neck or nothing, he dashes off : 
 
38 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., October 3, 1908. 
 
 Pastor C. J. .4. Holmgren: 
 
 Please let me know by return mail if, since the meeting with the conference 
 officials in Concord, in November last, you have joined a congregation be- 
 longing to the Augustana Synod, and if you continue sending your children 
 to the Episcopal Church. 
 
 Ex officio, G. Xelsenius, 
 President of the Yexc York Conference. 
 
 My reply to this letter was that I was tied hands and feet, and 
 that I had hoped that he, the president, would come to the rescue; 
 there also being no other Augustana congregation in Concord except 
 the one from which I had been outlawed. 
 
 With this intimidating letter before me, nothing else was left than 
 to prepare for the coming blow by getting ready the Third Supple- 
 ment to be dated on Reformation Day, October 31, though by some 
 mistake the ciphers became changed to 21. 
 
 As had been anticipated, the following summons arrived on the 8th 
 of November, 1908 : 
 
 Pastor C. J. A. Holmgren, Concord, N. H.: 
 
 Whereas you have not satisfactorily answered my inquiries, made in the 
 beginning of October, as to if you still are sending your children to the 
 Episcopal Church; and, as in conversation and writing you still are be- 
 lying and raising injurious reports against your brethren, therefore, you are 
 herewith summoned to appear before the New York Conference officials, at 
 their meeting in the Swedish Lutheran Immanuel Church parsonage, 521 
 Leonard Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., November 16, 1908. I enclose herewith $10 
 for traveling expenses. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 G. Nelsenius, 
 
 President of the Yew York Conference. 
 
 Star Chamber Hearings. 
 
 Thus I was summoned to attend another star chamber hearing, re- 
 calling to my mind the meeting these same officials, together with the 
 president of the Boston District, Rev. Bernhard, held with me in the 
 just opened basement to dedicate the preposterously enlarged Con- 
 cord church, which meeting was held between 9 p. m. and 3 a. m. No- 
 vember 19-20, 1907. 
 
 Though a post card could have furnished them with such irrelative 
 items, Rev. Norden, my Concord successor, was at that meeting al- 
 lowed to kill the time by, for instance, picturing before this tribunal 
 articles some brethren had commissioned him to arrantly and de- 
 gradingly buy for me in the Concord stores. 
 
39 
 
 The precious time was also wasted to Norden’s new accusation that 
 I had not more than one book for entering the ministerial acts. It 
 was indeed a sight for a painter to see these tormentors put their vic- 
 tim to the rack for things not pertaining to the issue to be determined. 
 This meeting had been called to investigate my statements made in my 
 circulars, and for nothing else. 
 
 I told them, however, that as, through the efforts of the well paid 
 and protected Norden, the congregation is now the happy owner of 
 such extra book in which to enter the ministerial acts, I am ready to 
 enter in it all the records that are kept in my private books, though 
 everything pertaining to the minsterial acts performed by me within 
 the parish can be copied from the old big book, in which to my best 
 knowledge I have entered it all. Besides that, in the city records is 
 filed everything of importance of that nature. 
 
 As at my arrival in Concord, 1902, the congregation was in debt 
 of over $1,000, and as my predecessors did not go to the trouble to 
 make the congregation defray the expense of a few dollars for such 
 an additional book, and from the recent experiences I have had with 
 the deacons of New Sweden, Me., and on account of that the min- 
 isterial blacklisters were eagerly watching for chances to let the air 
 ring with, that I have troubles wherever I am ; and as even my efforts 
 to induce members to pay their dues to the missions and institutions 
 of the Synod and Conference met with bitter opposition, I was too 
 much in a hornet’s nest to be able to proceed as one having the pre- 
 requisite moral and financial backing to fulfil my calling, not to men- 
 tion that in these small mission places and even in larger parishes such 
 an extra book is seldom kept as it ought to. 
 
 Even the parish treasurer of Concord was at this very meeting per- 
 mitted to waste the time by reading an itemized statement as to how 
 much had been paid out and received each month. At this he was, 
 however, omitting to refer to such things as that, for instance, a mem- 
 ber had asked me why the collectors did not come to her to take up the 
 dues, she asking me if I would receive it. Another member had also 
 told me that the collectors had not been around yet, but that when 
 they did come she would tell them that not a cent would come from 
 her unless the pastor get it for his running expenses, she evidently re- 
 ferring to such facts that, for instance, the treasurer used my small 
 salary to settle a $100 bank note from the time I was driven from 
 New Sweden, Me., and was unable to defray the moving expenses to 
 Concord. 
 
 Nay, by the indirect aid of the Conference president, I was forced 
 to turn over to settle on my salary the $175 I made on a lecture in 
 
40 
 
 May, 1906, though by right such money ought to have been used to 
 above all assist me in covering the heavy losses sustained during the 
 succeeding lecture tour I made that same summer. 
 
 Another member of the Concord parish had asked a leader or owner 
 of the parish why they were against me, and received as reply that 
 no one can imagine what kind of a man I am, a reply tallying with a 
 similar answer a parish member of the large Manchester congregation 
 received when asking a leader why I, who seemed to be such a fit man 
 to call to the then vacant congregation, was not recommended by the 
 deacons of that place. With no valid charges to prefer against me, 
 these leaders know too well that all that is necessary to rob a man of 
 his chances is merely to make him suspected. 
 
 A Fictitious Trial. 
 
 At any rate, during this nightly meeting in November, 1907, the 
 time was not devoted to such things as had a direct bearing on my 
 circular statements, where I had implored the brethren for a brother ’s 
 hand and not for disgracing alms, so sure to kill my chances of regain- 
 ing a station on a par with the bulk of the brethren. 
 
 In fact, any one familiar with church history would claim that there 
 is nothing new under the sun, and that this fictitious trial and the 
 other moves connected therewith tallies with the meeting of June 
 15, 1405, when Magnus Huss was fictitiously allowed to make his 
 vindicatory speech, and the priests, by making a deafening noise, 
 drowned the voice of the martyr, whose death-doom was precon- 
 certed. The result of this meeting was that the officials announced 
 that a real trial had been held and that my circular statements could 
 not be maintained by me as being true. 
 
 We all know what the verdict will be when a man’s enemies are his 
 judges; and, for reasons plausible enough to every right-minded per- 
 son, I was finally compelled to give up parleying with these liegemon- 
 ical blacklisted, who might even take advantage of my harborless con- 
 dition to “lovingly and deploringly” place me in some asylum, my 
 wife not being able to stand even the thought of my attending the 
 meeting to be held in the very camp of the enemy this November. 
 
 Thus, with these intimidating letters of October 3 and November 
 8 before me, I saw no other way than again to appeal to the whole 
 body of ministers for an open trial. Consequently I hurried to the 
 printing office to get ready the Third Supplement, prepared in order to 
 escape being tried and condemned in the dark. Accordingly, my 
 reply to the Conference president was as follows : 
 
41 
 
 Concord, N. H., November 11, 1908. 
 The Rev. G. Nelsenius , D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y.: 
 
 Dear President : la reply to your summons for me to appear at the meet- 
 ing in your home to face the charges that I send my children to the Epis- 
 copal Church, etc., I beg leave to state that the precarious condition of my 
 wife forbids me to attend. Besides, I have just now another circular ready, 
 which evidently will be of more importance to consider than that I permit 
 my children to sing under a prominent teacher ; this not only free of charge, 
 but even for some compensation. Consequently, I herewith return the $10 
 forwarded. I do sincerely hope that you will kindly meet me on the same 
 ground upon which I am endeavoring to prevail, i. e., before the whole body 
 of ministers. If I could be assisted to attend a general meeting of the Synod, 
 and if all the brethren could be present, then these round robins would not 
 be needed. As matters now stand, there is no other way than to make use 
 of the printing press. May God prevail upon you to conscientiously and lov- 
 ingly meet me on this same arena of truth and light ! 
 
 With my family, I am yours in the Lord gratefully, 
 
 C. J. A. Holmgren. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 God pity us all as we jostle each other, 
 
 God pardon us all for the triumph we feel 
 When a fellow goes down ’neath his load on the heather, 
 Pierced to the heart. Words are keener than steel 
 And mightier far for woe or for w^eal. 
 
 J. Milleb. 
 
 Devils Dragging Away Their Own. 
 
 That this way of proceeding were the only rational steps that could 
 be taken is beyond a question, when also considering that blacklisting 
 brethren had “ employed” the New Sweden deacons to send me to 
 Coventry on such inhuman charges referred to above, and then, next 
 in order, had been exerting themselves to get the Concord deacons to 
 outlaw me on the charge of insanity. 
 
 The world’s history is crowded with examples that whenever it has 
 been the object of one individual to ruin another lunacy has been the 
 most formidable weapon employed, thus causing Christ to threaten 
 that whosoever shall call his brother a fool shall be in danger of the 
 hell of fire. In regard to this demoniacal sort of blacklisting, an au- 
 thority on this question speaks out : 
 
 Disordered reason, or witchcraft, has been the ordinary accusation re- 
 sorted to, whenever it was the object of one individual to ruin another. In 
 cases of these convictions or murders in the past, the clergy displayed the 
 most intemperate zeal. It was before them that the poor wretches were first 
 brought for examination, in most cases after a preparatory course of solitary 
 confinement. (So, also, Fogelstrom was shut up in a to him exceedingly 
 vexatious place), cold, famine, want of sleep, or actual torture (so, without 
 any vacation whatever, and seldom having had time to sit down to meals, as 
 others do, I have now for years worked at least 17 hours a day). 
 
 On some occasions the clergy themselves actually performed the part of 
 prickers, and inserted long pins into the flesh of the victims, in order to try 
 their insensibility (the acts perpetrated against me are partly related in still 
 unprinted manuscripts), and, in all cases, they labored with the most per- 
 severing investigations to obtain from the accused a confession which after- 
 wards may be used against them in their trial, and which, in more than one 
 case, formed, though retracted, the sole evidence in which the conviction took 
 place. (The tactics of my blacklisted having been also to deprive me of 
 the requisite moral and financial backing, and then to disgrace me for non- 
 support of my family, and as one receiving alms and charities.) So little 
 light seemed the Bible to afford them regarding the atrocities against witches, 
 
43 
 
 that the Secession Church of Scotland, comprising many intelligent clergy- 
 men and a large number of the most serious and religious of people, com- 
 plained, in the Annual Confession of personal and national sins (printed in 
 an act of their Associated Pesbytery at Edinburgh in 1743), “of the penal 
 statutes against witches having been repealed by the parliament, contrary 
 to the express law of God.” The public was so familiarized with such atro- 
 cious scenes, that it relished and gloried in them ; singing the cants of them 
 in popular airs, and representing them in hideous engravings, with devils 
 dragging away “their own,” while the clergy preached solemn discourses, called 
 witch sermons, upon occasion of every sacrifice, the effect of which was, of 
 course, to inspire fresh zeal to collect fuel for another. 
 
 Realizing that the Concord parish owners were suborned to lend a 
 hand in drawing a cordon around me, I warned them, though in vain, 
 that before God we are looked upon as murderers, even if we do not 
 plunge a knife through the victim. 
 
 Notwithstanding all such entreaties and assurances that God is on 
 my side, in 1906 their moves gradually waxed so bold-faced that the 
 father of several of the Concord leaders related to my wife that once 
 in the church I had acted as a lunatic. Unlike Mrs. Fogelstrom, who, 
 according to Fogelstrom ’s pamphlet, “In Perils Among False Breth- 
 ren,” remained at Thorsby while his “kidnappers” induced him to 
 accompany them to Omaha, my wife could respond that, though such 
 reports would have frightened her terribly, she is not a bit afraid, as 
 she herself was present at that very time and therefore knows it to be 
 a big lie. “Ah, was Mrs. Holmgren in the church, too, at that 
 time 1 ?” exclaimed the old man abashed, he having himself been ab- 
 sent at that meeting. 
 
 In connection with this, it may here be reminded that, while trav- 
 eling i - w Augustana pastors are directing strangers f 
 
 attention to'Nliat I am demented!* 
 
 A Shrewd Move. 
 
 Even one of these pastors, Rev. Aslev of Lowell, Mass., has his 
 name used as seal to the following action taken by the Concord 
 deacons, which, addressed to the pastors of the Boston District, was 
 no doubt one of the prime reasons or moves for robbing me of the ap- 
 portionment from the mission board, which board, for instance, in 
 1908 awards my successor, Norden, $300, in spite of that the Confer- 
 ence is fast losing ground and influence in Concord,* the congrega- 
 tion being also brought into a debt of nearly $3,000: 
 
 * Certain pastors claim that my presence in Concord is the cause of Norden’s failure; 
 but would it not be as reasonable to blame me for the fact that, according to statistics, 
 Norden’s previous congregation, in Minnesota, dwindled one third in about two years, dur- 
 ing which he had charge of the place? 
 
44 
 
 West Concord, N. H., March 3, 10#6. 
 Rev. J. A. Bernhard, Everett . Mass.: 
 
 Because of certain disturbances in our congregation, or rather between the 
 congregation and the pastor, we wish to appeal to the Boston District for as- 
 sistance to clear up this matter as soon as possible. We have written to the 
 conference president and he has also been here, but it seems as if his visit 
 has not brought about the intended effect, because, instead of getting better, 
 it is growing worse every day that goes. The circumstance is such that 
 something must be done at once, and what we want the district to do is to 
 see to it that things be pushed before anything serious takes place. Indeed, 
 it seems to he true that Pastor Holmgren is not always accountable for his 
 actions, and it is absolutely necessary to make haste in getting Pastor Holm- 
 gren removed from here, as the welfare of the congregation and of Holm- 
 gren demands it. Pastor Aslev may defer to render a more thorough-going 
 account as to the real facts. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 Send letter to . 
 
 As at one occasion one of the signers of this petition wept like 
 Petrus at the coal fire and also voted against the eighteen men, who, 
 in the summer of 1906 congregated to vote me out of the congregation 
 and the ministry ; and as this so taciturn deacon no doubt was carried 
 away at seeing the name of Aslev in this petition; and as members 
 have stated that the leaders in Concord would never have dared to do 
 what they did if Aslev, etc., had not been backing it up; and as in 
 cases of this nature the hegemonical blacklisters among the ministers 
 are the most blameworthy in this connection, I omit the names of the 
 signers, as well as that of Concord’s Svea correspondent, who, with his 
 two brothers and his family, has even abandoned the Synod and 
 joined the Baptists. 
 
 That in these cases so much depends on the attitude of ministerial 
 leaders, teachers in morals and religion, is also evident from what I 
 experienced, for instance, in 1888, when during the summer vacation, 
 as a student of the Synod’s college at Rock Island, 111., I had been 
 commissioned to assist Rev. G. 0. Gustafson of Varna, 111., as preacher 
 and school teacher. 
 
 Having finished my first day in the parochial summer school, an 
 aged man entered the school-room, and, having expressed his great 
 joy at having a student preacher during the summer, he at once began 
 to denounce his pastor as being such a hasty man, full of wrath, white 
 in anger, etc., and that there* was a general ill feeling against him. 
 
 “Come,”! replied, “at first let us go in the church and pray for 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit before we proceed any further. ’ ’ 
 
45 
 
 When we rose from the prayer, this aged man trembled like an 
 aspen leaf, and left me without complaining any more. 
 
 In a letter to my friend, the American professor in mathematics at 
 the Synod’s school, Dr. A. W. Williamson, the son of a renowned mis- 
 sionary among the Indians, and who had prevented me from leaving 
 the school in disgust, I also mentioned the deplorable hatred I had no- 
 ticed against this pastor. In his reply to me, Doctor Williamson said : 
 
 I trust you will bear with me as a friend to avoid as far as possible all 
 allusions to any past dissatisfaction with Pastor Gustafson, who is a most 
 worthy man and was for a long time eminently popular at Varna. 
 
 It is often the case that one, going to a place under the circumstances 
 you did, would suppose three fourths at least against a man, when the dissat- 
 isfaction in the church itself is almost confined to those he talks with, and 
 to irreligious people not connected with the congregation, also, slanderers 
 are usually flatterers. 
 
 I do not think it likely that without caution you would say anything that 
 would do any serious harm if it stopped with the one who said it; but I do 
 know that in talking with the class of people who most like to talk on such 
 subjects, words said, that could not possibly in the slightest degree have 
 either hurt the feelings of the one concerning whom I spoke them, have 
 been turned and warped and twisted till they became the most outrageous 
 mischief-breeding slanders. “Where there is no tale-bearer the strife ceas- 
 eth.” I thank God you have done so much to allay the strife, and pray 
 God that he will help you to so improve the experiences to add to your prac- 
 tical ability in managing a congregation, and also to practically forget these 
 things except in the few cases where they may be useful. 
 
 When closing my labors that summer, I had the great satisfaction 
 to witness that, even in that parish, where about half of the people 
 were related, it was unanimously agreed to raise the salary of the pas- 
 tor. 
 
 A few years later, however, Doctor Williamson’s words became true 
 the opposite way. From the reports received, the people then drove 
 away its pastor by the aid of the student, then commissioned to them, 
 during a subsequent summer vacation; and while Rev. Gustafson is 
 moving out of the parsonage, in an adjoining yard, a band plays joy- 
 ful airs and the student “tale-bearer” is carried in triumph on the 
 arms of the people. 
 
 As also, according to President Roosevelt, people are so apt to pass 
 judgment upon a man, not with reference to whether he is a fit or un- 
 fit public servant, but with reference to whether he is an executive or 
 legislative officer, there is no wonder that here in Concord such bold 
 moves of the deacons, humored and carried away by ministerial bosses, 
 robbed me of even the repute and respectability that was indispensable 
 for my movements and progress among the Concord parishioners and 
 
46 
 
 people in general, though, in spite of this, I kept on taking in new 
 members. For a fact, there is hardly any doubt but that Rev. Aslev, 
 Norden and other errand-boys of the ring, had never met with such a 
 ready response, here in Concord and in New Sweden, to their shrewd 
 attempts to collect evidences to countenance an official kick out of my 
 calling in life if they, these ministerial blacklisters, had not acted as 
 if they were merely catering to personal selfish interests of the parish- 
 owners of these places. For my part, I respect a widow or a mother 
 when wanting herself or her daughters married to good men ; and I 
 also admit that many of our small congregations are unable to sup- 
 port a family of a minister. Students, and occasionally an unmar- 
 ried pastor, are the ones that ought to tend to such small parishes, 
 whence rumors now and then spread like wildfire that certain students 
 have selected their brides from these small mission places wherein they 
 labored during the summer vacation. On the other hand, I own, that 
 even this method is apt to be abused in more than one way. So, for 
 instance, Elizabeth Towne, the editor of Nautilus, writes a girl, upon 
 whose feelings some emotional evangelist had been playing, that such 
 evangelists aim to play on the feelings of every girl or woman in the 
 congregation he 4 ‘ exhorts, ’ ’ and that she has let her feelings go out to 
 the evangelist himself instead of directing it toward the Christ he 
 tried to preach. This same editor also asserts “that there ought to be 
 a law against young and good-looking men going around as evangel- 
 ists ; but if there were, the evangelist business would quickly go out of 
 fashion for lack of converts.” 
 
 Insanity Commissioners. 
 
 Pleading as an excuse that I had taken care of the above mentioned 
 New Sweden cattle, Rev. J. A. Anderson of Brockton, Mass., a former 
 vice-president of the New York Conference, has spread out that I am 
 xm worthy of a brother’s hand, and that for such reasons he had dis- 
 missed me from a position, with reference to which Doctor Nelsenius 
 wrote to me, May 9, 1904 : 
 
 I am glad that the Boston Immigrant Board has extended a call to you 
 to solicit funds for the home. Thereby you are enabled to chiefly further 
 an important mission, and at the same time help up your own finances. 
 
 That this was needed is evident even from the statement of one of 
 our ministers, who wrote me that with the income I have it cannot be 
 possible for me not to sink in debt. A man without money is as a ship 
 without sails, or, as George Eliot says, “It is hard to be wise on an 
 
47 
 
 empty stomach.” Such things ought to be considered by a man who, 
 like Anderson, by brethren in the denominational papers of the Synod 
 is advertised as “our righteous and venerable brother, J. Alf. An- 
 derson.” 
 
 Still, after having devoted days and nights and money in pre- 
 parations for this work as solicitor for the immigrant home, and hav- 
 ing just begun the actual canvass and received a few checks, I was ab- 
 ruptly cut short (another reason for sending out my first circular), 
 causing Doctor Nelsenius to write : 
 
 I am sorry the Boston Immigrant Board did not remain faithful in its 
 dealings with you. But I do hope that they will change their minds and 
 decision. 
 
 According to certain mental science, this Anderson may belong to 
 the coarse-grained natures who care little for the happiness of man 
 and the animal creation ; and therefore he may not see any sanity in 
 a person overflowing with sympathy and goodness, and that such may 
 look silly to him. But as all men are liable to fail in their judgment, 
 he ought therefore to- leave to the owner of the cattle, or else to an 
 expert insanity or criminal board, to decide in cases of this nature. 
 
 The rules of ethics says here that the principle by which we are to 
 test our own motives, in speaking of that which may harm others, is 
 this: 
 
 When we utter anything which will harm another, and we do it either with- 
 out cause or with pleasure, or thoughtlessly, we are guilty of calumny. When 
 we do it with pain and sorrow for the offender, and from the sincere motive 
 of protecting the innocent, of promoting the ends of public justice, or for the 
 good of the offender himself, and speak of it only to such persons and in such 
 manner as is consistent wdth these ends, we may speak of the evil actions of 
 others, and yet be wholly innocent of calumny. 
 
 Though we pray with Christ, Father forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do, it is nevertheless our Christian duty to declare 
 against that ministers of the Gospel should constitute insanity boards, 
 with power to ruin the lives and homes of their fellow men, as it 
 is to meddle with things belonging to other professions. For such 
 reasons I consider them having trespassed upon other callings, when, 
 according to a letter from Rev. L. J. Fihn of Minnesota, brethren in 
 his district are claiming that I am of an unbalanced mind and that 
 such is incurable, etc. 
 
 I am well aware that the blacklisted are watching every move I 
 make, so as to search for any dark spots on me on which to throw the 
 limelight of publicity, so as to make the public join in the chorus 
 
48 
 
 “Crucify him!” From previous incidents in the history of mankind 
 I also know what childish, trivial charges have made the public follow 
 the guidance from the sanctuary.. So. for instance, when in 1716, at 
 Huntingdon, England, a Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, aged nine, 
 were hanged for selling their souls to the devil and raising a storm by 
 pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap. Nay, a cen- 
 tury before that time, in Geneva, for instance, within three months 
 five hundred witches were burned. I know, for instance, how in my 
 own ease the promised aid of nearly $1,200, to the great disappoint- 
 ment of my creditors, did not come, half of it even, merely because 
 such reports were afloat that I send two of my boys to the Episcopal 
 Sunday school. From such and similar experiences I know that these 
 blacklisters will not cease from retarding and hindering the forth- 
 coming of the succor I need, which needs cannot be filled with even the 
 full amount of the nearly $1,200 the ministers promised me in 1907. 
 And as the years are continuously rolling by, and as postponements af- 
 ter postponements are being made, I wish I could include in this little 
 book everything the blacklisters would possibly make use of as means 
 for drawing out the time, and smothering me from mere exhaustion, 
 before all my hairs grow white. 
 
 From certain information given me, I am led to believe that these 
 persecutors intend to jump on me for living in a big house. 
 
 To this, I must say that during our first year in Concord we lived in 
 a damp tenement, causing much sickness in the family. Therefore, 
 in the fall of 1903, while my wife was in the hospital to be operated 
 upon, the leading member of the congregation, Mr. Lindquist, in- 
 formed me that the house I now have was empty, and that it was a 
 good place for me. 
 
 As Mrs. Holmgren, as a convalescent, was very weak, and as it was 
 hard for us to keep servants all the time, I went to the hospital to 
 cheer her up with the promise that, while we wait for the ministers to 
 get us a substantial charge to move to, she shall live in a house free 
 from dampness, and with hot and cold water, to save her from too 
 much pain and work while doing her washing, etc. 
 
 Moreover, I was promised the place at $13 a month, besides the 
 privilege of tearing down the big old barn and cutting down several 
 big trees for fuel. 
 
 If my persecutors had not chased me so hotly, keeping me busy to 
 ward off the blows they aimed at me, I would have had a chance to 
 make use of the fuel thus afforded me. As things went, I only had a 
 chance to cut down one of the trees, wdiich furnished fuel for one of 
 
 -i* • 
 
 our stoves during one winter. 
 
49 
 
 Meanwhile the actions of ministers of the Synod made me expect a 
 call from Concord any minute. Consequently, when I asked for an- 
 other tenement, the owner would ask if we intended to live in it 
 any length of time, whereupon we had to respond that very likely we 
 shall have to move within a month or two, several boxes of my books, 
 etc., being already packed, etc. It is easy to understand that a land- 
 lord, who has just painted and papered a tenement, hesitates to take in 
 such a large family as mine, even if such family moves in with the 
 intention to stay. 
 
 Withal, having now lived such length of time in our present home, 
 our landlord has been willing to wait for months for the house rent, 
 something a new landlord could not be expected to do, especially as he 
 would not know the circumstances of our present exigency. 
 
 Besides this, we have been able to raise squabs, chickens, etc., in 
 the barn and there are many other reasons why we have kept on liv- 
 ing here, which reasons will be brought forth later on, if necessary. 
 
 Another thing, these blacklisters may use to throw dirt at me, and 
 use as an excuse for taking my scalp, would probably be my relation 
 to Dr. M. J. Englund and his chums with reference to the liquor ques- 
 tion. Therefore I consider it necessary to even delve at once into this 
 matter. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 Social evil has its root in the individual heart, and cannot be removed ex- 
 cept by influences operating within -it. This fountain of man’s corruption 
 must be purified to correct social vice. 
 
 Professor Seelye. 
 
 Dr. Englund, etc., and the Brewers, etc. 
 
 In 1900, soon after my arrival from Minnesota to Newport, R. I., 
 Doctor Englund, who was then pastor in Greenwich, R. I., advised me 
 to go to a large wine and grocery house of Providence, R. I., to buy 
 wine and beer so as to accommodate myself to his and his chums’ 
 wdshes to have my Newport home as a welcome retreat, rendering it 
 easier for him to avoid provoking certain people, as, for instance, 
 in 1900, at a meeting of the Providence District at Pontiac, R. I., a 
 man rose and laid upon the hearts of the assembled pastors how hard 
 it is to work against intemperance when people retort that they are 
 finding Englund so regularly and frequently drinking in a certain 
 saloon in Providence. 
 
 As my wife and I are almost teetotalers and never spent any money 
 for these things except for medicinal use, we had a long consultation 
 as to what course we ought to follow. 
 
 In not being too exacting, and keeping before our minds how the 
 Lutheran theologians of old used to discuss weighty questions by a 
 mug of beer, we thought it would be a judicious move to comply with 
 the express wishes of Englund, especially as my wife would much 
 rather see them taste of the milder beverages than of the hard drinks, 
 otherwise carried and preferred by some of these brethren. 
 
 In this, we thought that no judicious person could stigmatize us, 
 especially as men like Seth Low, Bishop Potter, President Eliot of 
 Harvard (yet in the prime of his life), Professor Chittenden of Yale, 
 Hon. Carroll D. Wright, and the rest of the Committee of Fifty of the 
 most eminent men of our land, who made a most valuable, important 
 and exhaustive investigation of all phases of the liquor question, pub- 
 lished : 
 
 That the great change for the better in the habits of the people, this gen- 
 eral recognition and observance of the law of temperance, which is peculiar 
 
51 
 
 to our own times, is to be ascribed chiefly to the greatly increased use of 
 mild fermented beverages, lager beer, ale and wine, and the marked falling 
 off in the consumption of distilled liquors. 
 
 Furthermore, as my wife and I had so often heard this Englund 
 eiticised and talked about in the homes of our ministers, even in the 
 presence of members of the parishes (on account of his drunkenness), 
 we could not but think of statements similar to what eminent scientists 
 are giving out, such as this, for instance : 
 
 Since it is indisputable that the desire for stimulants is the strongest im- 
 planted in the breast of man, since he has demanded it, and has procured it 
 in spite of prohibitory laws ever since the days of Noah, is it not far better 
 that he should be supplied with and be encouraged to drink the beverage 
 containing the smallest amount of alcohol and one which is at once healthful 
 and harmless? 
 
 My wife, children and I were, furthermore, entirely in the hands of 
 this Englund and chums, of whom one, the pastor in Providence, now 
 professor at Augustana College, Rev. Kjellstrand, is a chum of the 
 influential Dr. C. E. Lindberg, who, as a student for the ministry, 
 boarded in the home of Kjellstrand ’s parents at Paxton, 111. 
 
 By the way, it is evident to me that in order to assist this Kjell- 
 strand to be on good terms with his most prominent parish leaders, the 
 two contractors who had built the Newport temple, I had been in- 
 duced to abandon my prosperous condition in 1899 to hurry to New- 
 port and solicit money among the millionaires to pay off the church 
 debt to these contractors, Rev. K. K. Broberg, now returned to Sweden, 
 but then secretary of the New York Conference, having unscrup- 
 ulously delivered up my private inquiry or query into the hands of 
 the Conference president, Doctor Ahlquist, who, as a chum of the 
 chums, used it as an unconditional application for the place ; and who 
 stirred me to go two miles with them (S. Matthew 5 : 41), merely to 
 become a kind of “savior’ ’ upon whom to throw their “iniquity.” 
 
 This same Broberg is recently by Doctor Beck awarded a title A. B., 
 evidently to assist him from “troubles,” as such a degree is indis- 
 pensable to one seeking a position as rector in Sweden. 
 
 Contemporaneously, while my degree is still a T. F., Thou Fool, 
 Englund himself is lifted into one of the two editors’ chairs of our 
 Synod’s denominational paper, Augustana, and in connection here- 
 with assisted to a D. D. — degree or title. 
 
 Englund as ‘ ‘ Teetotaler. ’ ’ 
 
 Now this denominational paper, Augustana, is full of articles dis- 
 playing what a champion it is against the saloons, etc. So, for in- 
 
52 
 
 stance, in a February issue, of this year, we read among other hot 
 stuff : 
 
 The saloon dives are first of all the abodes of crime, where socialism and 
 anarchy have free scope to promulgate their to the community so dangerous 
 doctrines; and where crimes are planned, and vices committed and praised. 
 There is often laid the penny which should have given decent clothes and 
 brighter homes to the wife and children. The crime bags the money; while 
 the saloon-keeper’s wife displays in silk, brilliants, etc*., and his children 
 make a display as little princes and princesses, etc. 
 
 In 1900, at a district meeting in Pontiac, R. I., I had been appointed 
 to preach one of the evenings, and just a little before we, the ministers, 
 were about to leave the parsonage for the church that night Englund 
 had stowed away my satchel, containing the outline of my sermon. 
 While in the church, I hurriedly scribbled down another emergency 
 outline. It was a sight to see how Englund watched my movements. 
 A few years afterwards, a pastor reported that Englund has stated 
 that (though I had not tasted any liquor) I was so drunk that even- 
 ing that I had put on three ministerial collars, instead of one. 
 
 When at that time he could see so many collars on me, I cannot 
 but think that with reference to the wives and children of the saloon- 
 keepers mentioned in the above article from a February number of 
 August ana he has seen things without discrimination. For my 
 part, I cannot remember that I have seen more than five saloon-keep- 
 ers’ wives and children here in America. 
 
 Of these one was a near relative of the recently deceased Rev. 
 Sjoblom of Minnesota. I confirmed one of this noble woman’s 
 daughters, and both she and her children, as well as those of the other 
 wives of saloon-keepers I have seen, have all been dressed in the 
 simplest of clothes, and I cannot recollect that I have seen any bril- 
 liants on them ; nay, it seems to me that they looked much plainer than 
 the members of other families. 
 
 Nevertheless, I admit that perhaps Englund has seen more of these 
 wives and children than I have, but even if such are dressed in silk, 
 etc., I know that there are lots others dressed in silk, and that there 
 are millions who never visit the saloons and yet are poor and ragged, 
 just as in the Mohammedan countries, where for thirteen hundred 
 years they have practised prohibition, still we find that among these 
 brutal, women-oppressing people there are some dressed in silk, etc., 
 while the great masses, like the by them oppressed and persecuted 
 Armenians, are in rags and stripped bare. 
 
 For my own part, after 30 years of the most strenuous endeavors 
 to work for the brotherhood of man and the welfare of mankind, I 
 
53 
 
 find the condition of my home worse* than many a drunkard’s, while 
 my relentless persecuting brethren in the ministry are nicely floating 
 or tiding over this financial crisis. Yea, it is related in one of the 
 circulars of the Rock Island Tropical Company, selling shares at half 
 price ($100), that one of the editors of Augustana, who went to Mex- 
 ico to look over the property, has bought 25 shares. And I am quite 
 sure that from the tobacco that Englund, or my successor in Concord, 
 Rev. Norden, are annually consuming, there would be money to buy 
 silk for their respective wives. So, there must be others than saloon 
 keepers who can afford to wear silk and brilliants. 
 
 More than that, when I consider how futile my efforts have been 
 to receive human treatment at the hands of the ministerial black- 
 listers, and thus thinking of the experiences I have myself made, I 
 am strongly reminded of the words of Prof. W. A. Wyckoff, famous 
 for his first-hand studies of social conditions. He states : 
 
 It is a serious mistake to suppose that saloon keepers as a class are bent 
 upon the destruction of their fellowmen and callous to any appeal for help 
 from their victims. They are often men of quite singular practical helpful- 
 ness to the people about them. 
 
 The Committee of the Fifty, well-known worthy men in America, 
 devotes a special volume to the subject, “Substitutes for the Saloon.” 
 It concedes that “The saloon is the poor man’s club in that it offers 
 him, with much that is undoubtedly injurious, a measure of fellow- 
 ship and recreation for which he would look elsewhere in vain. The 
 laboring man out of employment knows that in some saloons he is 
 likely not only to find temporary relief but assistance in finding 
 work. . . . Many a man has been put on his feet by just this 
 
 kind of help.” 
 
 To corroborate this statement, I myself know of a happy family in 
 Chicago lifted up through the husband’s association with the saloon. 
 Some 25 years ago this man had merely $9 a week, but was told that 
 he ought to be able to drive a nail straight through a board and 
 become a carpenter. He was at once assisted to a job on a building, 
 and from that day on he has earned from $3 to $3.50 a day; and 
 more than once his happy wife and growing family have expressed 
 their conviction that none of the members of the congregation they 
 belong to would have thought of being such a chum as to raise a fel- 
 low up in such a practical and friendly sort o’ way. 
 
 On the other hand, I know of a hard-working girl in one of our 
 great cities telling me that she had saved several hundred dollars 
 from years of hard work in the sweat shops of that city. Afraid to 
 
54 
 
 trust her money to any of the banks, she asked the treasurer of the 
 congregation she belonged to if she could be allowed to have her 
 money stored in the safe of that sanctuary. When this treasurer 
 left for the West, she could not recover her money. 
 
 From such and thousands of similar incidents, it seems to me that 
 teachers in morals and religion have a great responsibility when we 
 direct man’s love of destructiveness, so that we do not use witches, 
 saloons, etc., as lightning rods to switch off the strokes that should 
 be directed to the root of the evil. Nay, we ought to take to heart 
 the words of the “winebibber and the friend of the publicans and 
 sinners,” who says of the scribes and the pharisees: 
 
 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments 
 of men. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, for- 
 nications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies : These are the things which 
 defile a man. 
 
 But with reference to wine, he says : tV 
 
 “Neither do men put new wine into old bottles : else the bottles break, and 
 the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish : but they put new wine into new 
 bottles, and both are preserved.” 
 
 Would it, therefore, not be better if we could pray God that He 
 would speed the day, when the habitual drunkards, the family min- 
 ers, who abuse the stuff sold to them in the saloons, clubs, drug stores, 
 etc., may be proclaimed as subjects to a form of madness and dealt 
 with accordingly; but, also, that the habitual bigots, fanatics, cruel 
 tyrants and criminals of the sanctuary be dealt with in the same 
 manner ? 
 
 Instead of therefore sitting in an easy chair and getting hold of 
 someone upon whom to direct man’s love of destructiveness and dis- 
 gust, and instead of thus cleaning the outside of the cup and of the 
 platter and to merely appear righteous unto men, would it not be 
 better to make these two places, the saloon and the sanctuary, clean, 
 orderly and decent places from the inside. This is Christ’s method. 
 He endeavored to create a new heart in man. His method was love. 
 
 A Whole Conference Forbids Its Pastors and Members to Re- 
 ceive any Gifts from the Saloon-Keepers and Brewers. 
 
 A few months ago, I visited Manchester, and, while in one of the 
 big blocks of that city, entered every one of the doctors’ and lawyers’ 1 
 offices to solicit and sell a magazine to get funds for disseminating 
 good, wholesome, Moody-spirited literature and reading. In one of 
 
55 
 
 the offices there happened to be an agent of one of the New England 
 breweries, and he asked me to accept $25 for the good cause. I 
 looked upon the man as a ‘‘good Samaritan” finding the poor man 
 on the Jericho road, where the priest and the Levite had left him 
 bleeding. I accepted the gift and said, ‘ ‘ Thank you, sir. ’ ’ 
 
 What a shock to me when, in the papers, it is now reported that 
 one of our great conferences, comprising about 200 pastors, has now 
 passed a resolution forbidding pastors and churches to receive any 
 gifts from brewers and saloon-keepers ! 
 
 As a student for the ministry, during the summer of 1890, in that 
 same conference, I assisted Rev. J. G. Hultkrans of Brainerd, Minn. ; 
 and one day he asked me to wait on the sidewalk while he stepped 
 into a saloon to ask for money for his church. And while he was 
 in there and received his contribution, I had occasion to consider the 
 role the use of liquors has had with reference to responsibility for 
 crime. To be fair, I could not but admit that both in the Bible and 
 in the world’s history, liquor occupies a minor role. 
 
 Adam’s ambition, Cain’s jealousy, David’s lust and covetousness, 
 Sodom’s and Gomorrha’s sin, Judas’ covetousness were and are the 
 preeminent causes of crimes, and the fall of nations as that of Rome, 
 Greece, etc. 
 
 If, therefore, my blacklisting bosses are on the alert to use as evi- 
 dences against me, that I have accepted such gifts, I may rightly ask 
 why, then, does our Synod’s official organ, Augustana, in laudable 
 terms recently mention that a saloon keeper in Sweden has just do- 
 nated some precious articles to the big cathedral of Skara, Sweden? 
 Nay, I claim, that in such moves against me, the blacklisted have the 
 whole weight of the Bible against them; where it says that, for in- 
 stance, in the time of the Old Testament, the people are commanded 
 to pay one tenth of the wine they produce to the church. If God 
 favored prohibition, He would, furthermore, never have allowed to 
 be recorded that the Son of Man manufactured wine at the marriage 
 feast, and that St. Paul directly commands one of his colleagues, 
 Timothy, to use wine with his meals. 
 
 For such reasons, the Lutheran pastor at Anderson, Ind., the Rev. 
 Richard Eirich, asserts, that people pretending to be Christians make 
 out of the Founder of Christianity a criminal by their claims that the 
 making, drinking and distributing of wine, beer and like beverages, 
 is wrong. 
 
 The great reformer, Pastor Parkhurst of New York, also declares : 
 
56 
 
 I am decidedly of the opinion that the more wine there is produced in 
 this country and the more freely it is transported from state to state the less 
 whiskey will be used, and the smaller amount of drunkenness. 
 
 Nay, Bishop Neely of Maine, says: 
 
 The clubs are simply coteries of young men who call themselves clubs and 
 get together and have their bottles in their closets. I am sure these clubs 
 have a very bad effect, in that young men who never drank at all previously 
 have done so in the secrecy of the club, as they call it; they would not be 
 seen to drink over a bar, but they do it in the club rooms. 
 
 Consequently, Bishop Clark of Rhode Island claims, that prohibi- 
 tion has been disastrous to the cause of temperance. 
 
 Another bishop, Hall of Vermont, asserts, “That prohibition drives 
 underground the mischiefs which it seeks to cure, making it more 
 difficult to deal with the evil and impossible to regulate the trade, as, 
 for instance, in the quality of liquor sold.” 
 
 Cardinal Gibbons, furthermore, reminds us: 
 
 We might profitably learn a lesson from the old cities of Europe, which for 
 2,000 years have been agitating this question. There is not a single city in 
 Great Britain, Ireland or on the Continent which attempts to prohibit by law 
 the sale of liquor. They have learned from a long experience that the best 
 method of regulating this article of commerce is to impose licenses to main- 
 tain good order for the protection of the citizens and to punish the violators 
 of the law. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day 
 that put their trust in him. 
 
 of trouble; and he knoweth them 
 Nahum 1: 7. 
 
 Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
 For olden time and holier store ; 
 
 God’s love and blessing; then and there, 
 
 And now, and here, and everywhere. 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 The Anglican Church. 
 
 Withal, as to the charge that I permit two of my sons to attend the 
 choir of the Episcopal Church, I am still owing Rev. J. K. Tibbits, 
 of the St. Timothy Episcopal Church, $25. 
 
 Moreover, in November, 1906, when almost on the verge of despair, 
 my family was cheered by a visit from Rev. Tibbits ’ deaconess, find- 
 ing my home without food, fuel, etc., Mrs. Holmgren in bed, she hav- 
 ing finally collapsed under the untold agonies she had been subjected 
 to, while her faith in the angeldom of ministers was shaken, and we 
 were blacklisted and robbed out of our belongings. And, thus, 
 through Rev. Tibbits, a lift was given me for that moment. 
 
 When her son told Mrs. Holmgren of Rev. Tibbits inviting him 
 to join the new choir of St. Timothy’s Church, to be instructed by 
 an expert teacher from Oxford, England, she was exceedingly happy 
 to find her depressed son’s thoughts led into other channels, the boy 
 and the rest of the children having suffered intensely on account of 
 the atrocities perpetrated against us. 
 
 On account of the precarious condition of my wife, nervous pros- 
 tration, I did not venture to perturb her or to object on the ground 
 that relentless blacklisted would here make a whale out of a her- 
 ring, and, as they did with reference to my human treatment of the 
 New Sweden cattle, they will have me arraigned for heresy or demen- 
 tia, for letting the boys attend a choir, where boys from different de- 
 nominations convene to cultivate their voices, something my children 
 also are in great need of, as, since having abandoned a prosperous 
 charge in Minnesota, the family has been reduced gradually to pen- 
 ury and want, so that we can hardly keep from shivering during the 
 cold winter nights, much less keep a piano, organ, music teachers, etc. 
 
58 
 
 Owing to the previous revolting experiences, it would also have been 
 a most difficult task to persuade the children to associate with any 
 church whatever, if, being expelled and expugned by the “ Lutheran’ ’ 
 synagogue and insanity commission, on the top of it all, they should 
 be made to understand that other churches were still worse. There- 
 fore, it seemed to be necessary to let the children understand that 
 we ought at least to look for the brotherhood of man wherever there 
 is a chance. Besides, during my school days at Rock Island, 111., 
 the students were allowed to attend services even in a Presbyterian 
 church. So, I felt comparatively safe that the boys attended a choir 
 belonging to a church, concerning which, in the 17th century, one 
 of the most renowned bishops of Sweden, J. Swedberg, stated that he 
 wished the Swedish clergy, at that time laboring among the new set- 
 tlers at Delaware, to associate and cooperate with the Anglican clergy. 
 Moreover, at a recent visit in America, a prominent rector from 
 Sweden was the guest of the Episcopal Church, and still, at his 
 return to Sweden, he was not deprived of his tenure of office, and this, 
 in spite of that Rev. Englund, of our Synod’s organ, has time and 
 again written articles for the press, denouncing the Episcopal Church 
 for using false pretences, when getting Swedes to join that church. 
 
 It may here also be proper to mention that my boys know how 
 rectors of the Episcopal Church have taken a proper stand as over 
 against what we have been subjected to. So, for instance, with ref- 
 erence to the war recently held between the deacons of the old his- 
 toric First Congregational Church of Springfield, 111., and the pas- 
 tor, Rev. Dr. Frank Luther Goodspeed, an Episcopal rector of St. 
 George’s Church, Rochester, N. Y., Dr. Richmond, writes in a Spring- 
 field paper: 
 
 The cheapest and meanest men he ever met were New England church dea- 
 cons. The honorable influence and distinguished service of Rev. Dr. Good- 
 speed are known far and wide. No charges have ever been presented against 
 his doctrinal views or moral behavior. The pews are full on Sundays. The 
 finances are in as good a condition as in most large parishes passing through 
 a financial stringency. Therefore, what is the trouble? We ask, of course, 
 as a priest of the Episcopal Church, and believing as I do that Congregation- 
 alism, as well as the so-called Protestantism is slowly breaking up and crumb- 
 ling into a moral decay, I can see in this church row a sign of the approaching 
 decline. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think I am right. 
 
 About the meanest and cheapest men I ever met were New England church 
 deacons. In a horse trade look out, and if you have a pretty wife be careful. 
 They are poor weak men like the rest of humanity, no better and often worse. 
 
 With reference to my own case, it is also, according to the Bible, 
 my duty to provide for my own, in every way still left open to me; 
 
59 
 
 and if the boys can earn a little by their singing, it is better to do it 
 in a church than in a theater, as one of them was offered to do. Mrs. 
 Holmgren’s health is also of the greatest consequence to my family; 
 and it would not be Christian to increase her agonies, and to risk 
 a breakdown again, should I manifest an overdone carking and un- 
 nerved anxiety with reference to the blacklisted ’ insidious bigotry. 
 Not long ago she was in bed again, and when such happens, I am en- 
 tirely tied to the home. 
 
 In this connection we may also mention another thing giving credit 
 to the Episcopal Church. In The Lutheran we read the following 
 article, “Another Forward Movement”: 
 
 This time it is in behalf of an underpaid clergy. In good brotherly fashion, 
 the more favored members of the Episcopal Diocese of New York have agreed 
 to help the less favored. “Metropolitan” on another page gives an interesting 
 account of how this came to pass. The Presbyterians in the western part of 
 Pennsylvania had agitated this matter before, as was reported in The Luth- 
 eran. To people living in the country, or in the smaller cities and towns, it 
 might seem that $1,200 and parsonage were quite a respectable provision, for 
 do not the great majority of self-respecting people live on less than that? But 
 they forget that if a pastor in most cities desires to' live as nearly all the con- 
 gregations and missions want him to live, a miracle must be performed which 
 most pastors are not equal to. In the case of our missionaries, in both the 
 larger and smaller cities, it has always seemed to us that the miracle came 
 nearer being performed, for how some of them manage to look as respectable 
 as they do we have never been able to explain. They must be feeding on the 
 hidden manna somewhere. The words of the Episcopal rector, who urged the 
 new departure have something sensible and convincing about them. He said: 
 “A man cannot do good work when he is harassed by bills he cannot pay, 
 and when his wife and children are suffering. I put this resolution on the 
 basis of pure mercy, since the burden of inadequate compensation falls not 
 on the broad shoulders of the curates themselves, but upon the wives and 
 daughters of the clergy.” This same movement has long been overdue in the 
 Lutheran Church. 
 
 Nay, you having even .recently passed a resolution that no pastor 
 over 50 is permitted to the Ministers’ Aid Association. A 
 
 big joke on me, who is not given a chance to join it in the prime 
 of my years. 
 
 Large Professions and Little Deeds. 
 
 Do you not, my hegemonical blacklisted, live in the profusion of 
 plenty, but have no compassion, and suffer myself to beg my bread 
 at your door, and to crave it as it were an alms, what before God you 
 are bound to supply? 
 
 In loving consideration for the welfare of the cause you profess 
 
60 
 
 to be yours, in 1899, I capitulated from a prosperous charge, and from 
 an income adequate to meet all my needs. I have undespairingly 
 delivered myself and family in your hands; but you have no com- 
 passion, though I have constantly strained myself to do the most good 
 to the church and the people. 
 
 Does it behoove confessed disciples of Christ to abhor a brother 
 merely because you divine him to be in possession of such a heart 
 that if you were in his position and he in yours he would not only 
 use the stocks and bonds so many of you are prosperously dealing in, 
 but even the last penny to succor you? 
 
 Just consider, while I am speaking to you as a brother in the open, 
 you are from behind, on my back, tabooing me out of my belongings. 
 And why should you hate me? Because I do not want that my and 
 other victims’ blood shall be on you; the Spirit of Truth and Love 
 striving to make brethren of humanity, and desiring that the world 
 shall see that there is salt in the church? Ought not disciples of Christ 
 to take to heart the rebuke of President Roosevelt, that wealth-get- 
 ting becomes a crime, when they obtain it by the sale of all their finer 
 instincts, by the sacrifice of their character, by the violation of the 
 laws of the nation, and by the trespass upon the rights of others to 
 the pursuit of liberty and happiness ? 
 
 The church cannot conceal its doings; the world knows the occu- 
 pations of teachers in morals and religion. But the world does not 
 know that ecclesiactical bosses and blacklisters can repent and grow 
 in grace. Does not Judge Burke of Chicago affirm that the great 
 masses of the people are alienated from the churches, because the 
 wedge of gold is hidden in them? Does not even the Northwestern 
 Advocate aver that many official members never participate actively 
 in the aggressive spiritual work of the church; such religious and 
 moral condition boding no good; and could not be so, if the laity 
 and clergy were living according to the teachings of the New Testa- 
 ment ? 
 
 God give us men. The time demands 
 
 Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and willing hands ; 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
 In public duty and in private thinking. 
 
 For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds, 
 
 Their large professions and their little deeds 
 Mingle in selfish strife, lo, Freedom weeps! 
 
 Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps. 
 
61 
 
 Instead of corroborating that darkness and love of unrighteous- 
 ness in the church has often caused persecution against those who 
 love the truth ; and, instead of instilling the people to assist in ‘ ‘ mur- 
 dering ” and outlawing a brother, would it not be proper and human 
 to take to heart the words of the Scriptures in Deut. 27 : 18 : 1 ‘ Cursed 
 be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. And all the 
 people shall say, Amen.” 
 
 Christianity versus Mohammedanism. 
 
 Indeed, it would be far better to take to heart even the words of 
 rebuke from Emperor William to missionaries: 
 
 During my visit to the holy places and to the Protestant and Catholic in- 
 stitutions of Palestine I met with one disappointment after another. Here, in 
 the Church of the Nativity, which ought to serve as an example of pious char- 
 ity and a pure Christian life, I meet the very reverse of charity and Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 I am not surprised that Christianity remains unpopular in the Orient, and 
 that Mohammedanism, with its fallacious teachings, still holds sway. How 
 can it he otherwise, when you clergymen are everlastingly quarrelling over 
 dogmatic questions, neglecting to teach true Christian charity and a pure life 
 in emulation of Christ Jesus? 
 
 I admonish every one of you to repent of your life of callous indifference 
 and cold formal worship. Leave the ways of the old church and enter at 
 once upon the higher and broader principles of the new Christianity, which 
 seems to live as much as possible in the spirit of the Gospel. I warn you 
 that unless you do this you will exert but little influence on the Moham- 
 medans, and you will blight the hopes of your brethren who have sent you 
 here as missionaries. 
 
 In editorial comment on these utterances The Lutheran Observer 
 of Philadelphia says: 
 
 Here is a king who knows what is the chief business of a Christian ministry, 
 and who tells it plainly. It would be well if the kaiser were to deliver a sim- 
 ilar rebuke to the quarrelsome dogmatizers in Germany and in this country, 
 where it is quite as much needed as among the Lutheran missionaries in Pal- 
 estine and other dominions of the sultan. By their dogmatic intolerance and 
 quarrels about speculative non-essentials, they distract the church, and alien- 
 ate the people from Christianity. 
 
 The Mote and the Beam. 
 
 Therefore, as to a brother’s sanity and standing, would it not be 
 well if teachers in morals and religion would pursue a human and 
 Christian course of action, and grant a brother in a predicament a 
 fair trial? Does not Christ declare, “Why beholdest thou the mote 
 
62 
 
 that is your brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine 
 own eye ? ” 
 
 When, for instance, in 1904, hegemonical brethren disgracefully 
 deprived me of a good extra income, they retorted that a mote had 
 been detected in my eye for having manifested a charitable spirit 
 towards the New Sweden cattle and their owners. In condemning 
 me for such, do these coarse-grained faultfinders really think that 
 all humanity, even the more fine-grained division, would side with 
 them in such verdict? Or, do they think that nothing can be found 
 in their own eyes, enough to provoke God to let them be subjected 
 to the same inhuman treatment they have brought me and family 
 under ? 
 
 Indeed, what are these absurd and “ childish” charges you prefer 
 against me, if, for instance, compared to what took place while Eng- 
 lund was still superintendent of- the Orphans’ Home at Jamestown, 
 N. Y. ? 
 
 In those days, Sater, now pastor at Bessemer, Mich., on a visit to 
 Minnesota, stayed one night in my home at Tracy, Minn. ; and, unno- 
 ticed by me, he then and there made use of my “letter-heads” for 
 writing down some grave accusations against Englund. 
 
 Informed of this, I strongly protested; and I also implored Sater 
 to weigh the matter more, and to remember that, may be, Englund 
 was on the verge of repenting, and would act accordingly. 
 
 From what was reported later on, Sater, however, brought the mat- 
 ter before the New York Conference, where one of the minor items, I 
 even had ridiculed Sater for using at all, was taken up at first ; where- 
 upon Englund brought forth witnesses, proving that Mrs. Sater, the 
 former nurse at the Orphans’ Home, was wrong. At that juncture, 
 one of the pastors moved that the whole thing be dropped, which 
 motion was carried. 
 
 Even if you think you have a right to expect more from me, hav- 
 ing spent years and years in schools to prepare for my calling in life ; 
 still, the punishment you suffer me to taste, on account of imaginary 
 wrongs, are altogether too much out of proportion to the honor and 
 esteem these two men are assisted to; though either the one or the 
 other must have been guilty of an offense of the most grave nature. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in 
 us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our 
 sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
 
 1 John 1 : 9. 
 
 Troubles and Mistakes. 
 
 And as to troubles you claim that I have had, and for which you 
 throw stones at me, have you never had any? Take, for instance, 
 you, Brother Zetterstrand, pastor at Naugatuck, Conn., and secretary 
 of the conference, and by Dr. Beck recently awarded the title of Doc- 
 tor, and who as a conference official is on the verge of or on the spring 
 to disgracefully discharge or depose me from my belongings, were 
 you yourself not in trouble a few years ago, when, according to the 
 reports from the Synod’s school, indignant students made you resign 
 from the position as teacher in Swedish language and to recoil into 
 the ministry? 
 
 And as to mistakes have you never made any? Don’t you think 
 it possible for God to develop your natural endowments to that 
 extent that you will consider your treatment of me 20 years ago a 
 mistake, when, as a seminary student, you was used by Dr. Lindberg’s 
 chum, Rev. C. M. Esbjorn, to assist as teacher in the Swedish lan- 
 guage? By being invested with .full power to examine the freshmen 
 students and to determine their marks, you had full liberty to sup- 
 ply aid to Rev. Esbjorn in his work to dishearten me, in contradis- 
 tinction to the other professors’ endeavors to cheer me to persevere 
 in preparing for the ministry, which cheer, for instance, consisted 
 in that a professor, a man of old Yankee stock, Dr. Williamson, in- 
 stilled me to not let certain incivility and unfriendliness I was sub- 
 jected to, prey on my heart.; it being, he said, merely due to envious- 
 ness that I met such incivility. 
 
 Do you, Zetterstrand, remember how once in the class room of the 
 freshman class, where Rev. Esbjorn, the curator, at my arrival at Rock 
 Island, floutingly had placed me, ordered me to parse a Swedish sen- 
 tence ? But, on the strength of your previously made express declara- 
 tion that the students ’ marks will entirely depend upon the final exam- 
 ination, and, as on my own hook, at that very time, I had delved into 
 some extra work in American history and language, contingently re- 
 
64 
 
 quiring all the time available, I begged to be exempted from parsing 
 in the class, as it was 14 years since I had passed through these fresh- 
 man studies, concerning which I promised to rub off the rust a day or 
 two before the final decisive examination. Nevertheless, you insisted 
 upon this class room display, evincing what is apt to get out of one’s 
 head after so many years, especially in a subject never used in daily 
 life. 
 
 Then, contrary to established custom, when, at the close of the term, 
 the final test had been made, you did not return the papers, thereby 
 retaining all in darkness as to whether I had succeeded in rubbing off 
 the rust, and if I was entitled to a 100 mark. Oscar Benson, a 
 minister’s son, now deceased, claimed, however, that he had been up 
 in your room and had been permitted to see the papers, and that my 
 answers were all correct; contrary to the comparatively very low 
 mark awarded me in the class certificate. Though, in those days, 
 my favorite author w T as Thomas a Kempis, it was, nevertheless, diffi- 
 cult for me not to ponder over that you yourself had made a mistake 
 in thus treating your pupil. 
 
 And as to you, Rev. Norrby, the treasurer of the conference, and 
 who, as another of the four officials, is on the spring to get your har- 
 borless brother blackballed and utterly degraded, do you never make 
 mistakes ? 
 
 When, in that dark and dreary night between November 19-20, 
 1907, you reprimanded that exceptionally good woman, Mrs. Holm- 
 gren, for not submitting to the wrongdoers, and for not belonging to 
 and siding with the Concord synagogue and insanity commission ; 
 when you thus made that benign Elizabeth quiver under your home- 
 thrusts, you may not have thought that you made a mistake. 
 
 However, if you could have followed that sympathizing soul from 
 her childhood up, how incessantly she has sacrificed every comfort and 
 every penny for the cause of church and humanity, yea, defended and 
 cheered her pastors, who, with incomes of over $2,500 a year, hardly 
 had any conception of what those willing hands and that sacrificing 
 heart did for them, while, as a member of churches in the West, she 
 often had an income barely enough to keep her alive, all in order to be 
 able to assist others. If you could have followed this heroic Chris- 
 tian soul struggling and denying herself to assist the sick and the 
 suffering, etc., till in her later years, with her husband and chil- 
 dren, she has faithfully and trustingly borne up under the inhumani- 
 ties and cruelties unrelenting blacklisted have subjected her home to, 
 — you would then, perhaps, find that your selfishness will capitulate 
 
65 
 
 to your conscientiousness and benevolence, so that, even in this life, 
 you may go far enough to ask for forgiveness for those cruel reviles 
 in that dismal night, when you cast the reproaches, merely because 
 she had taken the only Christian step a loving Christian could take 
 against the enemies of Christ, the real Christ, who even in former 
 ages was expelled from the synagogue, that even a Paul had to leave 
 and go to the Gentiles to teach them, that true worshipers shall wor- 
 ship the Father in spirit and in truth. 
 
 And even if you, Norrby, thereby have earned the favor of Aslev, 
 that he, as patron and friend, got you an adulatory call from the 
 Lowell parish, to be vacated by Aslev in April, no doubt there will 
 come a time when such victory will weigh on your soul as the Judas 
 money crushed that poor disciple; else there would be no balance 
 in the universe. 
 
 “Do Not Envy the Oppressor!” 
 
 And as to you, Rev. Aslev, my neighbor at Lowell, Mass., do you 
 never make a mistake? True enough, as a profound natural phil- 
 osopher and thinker, you have a cognizance of that under our sys- 
 tem, the supercilious hegemonical brethren, though practical and per- 
 ceptive men, are, nevertheless, deficiently developed in the reflective 
 faculties, and thus, as the famous Charles the Twelfth, easily duped 
 and lacking the gift of discriminating between real and fictitious 
 friends, etc., their minds chiefly dwelling on mere outer things. 
 
 You may thus have cognizance of that by flattering one class of 
 brethren and by slandering another, especially those so engrossed in 
 pure humanitarian work as to neglect to look after their own safety, 
 it is possible for even comparatively uneducated ministers to secure 
 the fattest of charges, as often as they are driven to resign, as, Rev. 
 Jacobson of Cambridge, Mass., already a couple of years ago rela- 
 ted, that provoked members of the humbler class at Lowell pressed 
 you to erect the scaffolding for leaving, and securing another call, you 
 now have received from Lemont, 111. 
 
 In 1902, at the time I was shrewdly brushed aside from my un- 
 questioned splendid chance of securing for myself this Lowell con- 
 gregation, you fold me that a long time ago, while you still were out 
 West, you had received a promise to get this parish by Dr. Beck, 
 whose near relative at that time was the leading member of that 
 parish. At this juncture, you also courted the favor of Rev. Jacob- 
 son, who made the decisive move at the meeting when you received 
 the call. A move, concerning which, Rev. Linell told me how pro- 
 
66 
 
 yoked he had been, while in a steam car, hearing you and Jacobson 
 speak as if God had nothing to do when it matters calling a pastor 
 to a congregation. 
 
 In those very days, you must have courted even the favor of the 
 president of the Boston District, the aged Rev. C. F. Johansson of 
 Boston, Mass., who, by recommending the otherwise jilted or rejected 
 Rev. J. P. Dahleen to take my place as temporary acting pastor at 
 Lowell, deprived me of an excellent opportunity of securing that 
 call, instead of you, and concerning which one of the conference offi- 
 cials, Rev. G. E. Forsberg, wrote to me on November 13, 1902: 
 
 Johansson’s course of proceedings is an insult to our entire clergy and 
 especially to the brethren of the Boston District. It cannot but arouse the 
 deepest anguish, indignation and harm in the heart of every right-minded pas- 
 tor, etc. 
 
 After having secured this parish, Rev. Jacobson and his wife relate 
 that once you came to their home and told the tale that I am never 
 at home attending the meetings of the Concord sewing circle; some- 
 thing Jacobson, however, told you to be a big lie. 
 
 Merely judging from this incident, it is evident that your methods 
 are always the same: flattery and calumny. To corroborate this, in 
 His providential care, God also granted me a testimonial already 
 from the time you w r ere a temporary student at Rock Island, 111. 
 This testimonial is Rev. Nordstrom’s letter to me, which letter I beg 
 leave to here remind you of : 
 
 Woodhull, III., June 23, 1892. 
 
 Dear Brother Holmgren: 
 
 I was very much grieved and provoked, having read Swenson’s letter to 
 Erikson, and what is most of all provoking is that this Erikson, who, by the 
 way, is a subdolous and evil-minded personality, has read the letter to some 
 of his schoolmates, at the same time passing the remarks that I had cheated 
 him of $24; and what most of all is preying on my mind is that he did not 
 turn to me to find out about the matter; but it came to my knowledge through 
 Aslev, who is just ordained. 
 
 Fraternally, 
 
 A. M. Nordstrom. 
 
 True enough, this Erickson is, under another name, laboring as 
 a minister of the Augustana Synod, he being comparatively unharmed 
 by your methods of working. 
 
 At all events, does not, at least at times, your deficiently developed 
 conscientiousness prevail upon your very large reflectives, so that 
 your intellect compels you to admit that it is a mistake to not talk 
 to the brethren, instead of talking of them? Your exceptionally large 
 
67 
 
 intellect ought at least in brighter moments compel you to think that, 
 after all, there must be a balance in universum, even if your fine 
 reflectives and perceptive® are not balanced by an equally fine consci- 
 entiousness, making your tears resemble crocodile tears instead of a 
 brother’s, and making you come under the smarting sentence of 
 Cowper’s assertion: 
 
 I would not number among my list of friends, though gifted with fine man- 
 ners and good sense, the man who’d needlessly set foot on a worm. 
 
 Nay, have you never noticed the words of Solomon ? ‘ ‘ Do not envy 
 
 the oppressor ! ■ ’ — words signifying that victories and trophies gained 
 by such methods are of no lasting value, and a big mistake to go after. 
 
 “One Flesh of Men, and Another Flesh of Beasts.” 
 
 And as to you all, brethren of the Augustana Synod, no matter if 
 it would be wrong to expect that the present day disciples of Christ 
 should be such a select and picked body, that only every twelfth 
 would be a Judas, etc., and no matter if even that splendid first set 
 of disciples in the critical moment began to be sorrowful and to say 
 to Christ one by one, “Is it I who is going to betray Thee?” and 
 who, also, left their friend and fled, they however, later on getting 
 power to make a bold front, — still, in view of that the printing press 
 and the protection thereby afforded humanity has changed the condi- 
 tion to even the disciples of Christ, is it not, then, a great mistake 
 to be so afraid of “the bosses” as to leave a brother, like another 
 Joseph, in the pit crying for mercy, for months and for years under 
 the sole discretion and jurisdiction of a set of “chums,” from whose 
 oppression he endeavors to flee? 
 
 To let a witch remain a witch, and to permit all invectives to be 
 thrown at her as being full of hate, malice, etc., and let those on the 
 top of her remain angels, worthy holy persons of Christian tact, 
 charity and discretion, and not to mind the witch, unless she appears 
 to be “lucky” enough to secure a lawyer to appeal to “Parliament 
 or Congress to repeal the statutes against witches, against the express 
 law of God,” must be a mistake, at least in the sight of God, who 
 claims that there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and 
 another flesh of birds, and another flesh of fishes. 
 
 The Accommodating Spirit Manifested in the First Circulars. 
 
 If, in my natural reluctance to cause others trouble, and in my de- 
 light to make personal sacrifices to render others happy, too much 
 
68 
 
 lenity is manifested in my first circular letters, I having omitted to 
 take into consideration that my coarse-grained blacklisters by nature 
 are impotent to appreciate the accommodating spirit maifested in my 
 anxiety to be mild and merciful in my censures, which lenity they 
 are construing as simply tokens of incapacity of proving anything; 
 if I, therefore, have found out my mistake in having misplaced my 
 sympathies, why can it not be possible that at least 500 of the brethren 
 will see your mistake in not having granted a ready undissembling 
 response to the first signal of distress from a garroted brother? By 
 neglecting to do this, have you not exalted the bad habits of the many 
 who are so apt to pass judgment on a man, not with reference to 
 whether he is a fit or unfit public servant, but with reference to 
 whether he is an executive or legislative officer. 
 
 Can it be anything but a mistake to throw invectives at your brother 
 as thanks for his accommodating spirit manifested in his circulars, 
 where in “practicable goodness” opportunity has been afforded to 
 meet him half way? Instead of calling your brother hateful, why 
 can you not size him up from the circumstance that he has sacrificed 
 a calling, in which, if he had spent as much time and energy for 
 completing the preparations for it, and later on in filling it, he would 
 have had a munificent income? So, also, in 1890, when at the sight 
 of Dr. Lindberg in the seminary, he was scared away from entering 
 that institution, and was offered a bright future by the Minnesota 
 Stat’s Tidning, or paper, he also then gave away to the remonstrances 
 and expostulations of the two presidents of the Synod’s school, these 
 men admitting that there was more money in store for me in other 
 callings, but that the Lord wanted me as pastor in the service of the 
 Synod. 
 
 Later on, as pastor, with an income of $1,400 a year on a growing 
 field, I capitulated to your implorations that in all likelihood the New- 
 port mission would be lost to the Synod if I did not go there, after 
 having taken up the precious time by writing a letter to a former 
 schoolmate, which letter you unjustly claimed to be an unconditional 
 application. 
 
 Can it be a right that the present conference president, as the 
 mouthpiece of the conference conscience, is obliged to state: 
 
 You know, Holmgren, that I cannot do anything for you, as you have against 
 you all the Conference officials from the time you served at Newport. 
 
 When, at Newport, I was told to even beg for my salary among 
 the millionaires, did I not then take upon myself more than one man’s 
 work in order to satisfy not only my own conscience, but also your 
 
69 
 
 whims, who had laid upon my shoulders a superhuman task, on which 
 you wanted my future to depend? 
 
 Is it right to now condemn me as being a hateful, morose person, 
 when in fact my great fault is that my benevolence has been* so pre- 
 dominant as to not be placed under an adequate consideration? If 
 for such reasons you condemn me as being of an unbalanced mind, 
 and if for such reasons, you are on the spring to place me in an asy- 
 lum, or otherwise throw me overboard, you are on the verge of per- 
 forming a mistake, the consequences of which would be so disastrous 
 to your eternal welfare, that, in my love for you, I desire to invoke 
 you not to undertake such a rash stroke of policy. 
 
 The Assertion of the Conference President. 
 
 In 1896, Rev. L. G-. Almen, who in 1900 neglected to fulfil his prom- 
 ise, made to me, to report to the statistician of the Minnesota Confer- 
 ence the great accessions made by me in 1899, before I left for New- 
 port, R. I., asserted before the congregation of Bethania, Mason, 
 Minn., that he never saw a man so ready to confess his faults and 
 shortcomings as I. Truly, if, in the past, and in obedience to the 
 precepts of Thomas a Kempis, I have always thought lowly of myself, 
 as the chiefest of sinners, and highly of the brethren, and my dis- 
 position has been an excessive humility, is it not a mistake of teach- 
 ers of morals and religion to take advantage of such, thereby resem- 
 bling poultry, peeking a newcomer if he does not peck back again, or 
 as, referring to the condition of the Synod, Nelsenius writes to me : 
 
 Yes, it is true that they who can elbow and shove themselves forward will 
 in most cases secure the fat position, while the others are driven to the wall 
 or cast adrift. 
 
 No wonder that this president hides himself under the excuse that 
 he has offered me a place or chance to canvass books for the Synod. 
 However, being denied a clean record from so many years of incessant 
 hard service as minister, there is no guarantee given that now, at a 
 more advanced age, I would suit the blacklisted in any other capacity. 
 Consequently, by leaving in disgrace now would give me an assurance 
 that my other services in other directions would terminate not only 
 likewise, but still more disastrous and aggravating. Besides, my 
 intelligence tells me that the Augustana Book Concern would do much 
 better to employ as its agent men of good reputation and of excellent 
 official record. 
 
 If I have had a comparatively larger attendance at services, and if 
 
TO 
 
 I have had a comparatively larger success in my work than the black- 
 listers have had; and if the instinct of self-preservation tells these 
 brethren that it is their duty to prove before the public or the congre- 
 gations that such men as I, notwithstanding their seeming great suc- 
 cess, are totally unfit to be ministers, why should these blacklisted all 
 the time employ lies and calumnies to verify their statements and 
 moves? Why can they not get hold of my real faults and defects 
 instead of jumping at chimeras? 
 
 And even if you could get hold of one of my real faults, you have 
 no right to causelessly give publicity to it. We have no right to 
 utter general conclusions respecting the characters of men drawn from 
 a particular bad action which they may have committed. The presi- 
 dent of Brown University, Dr. Wayland, here states: 
 
 How unjust it must be to proclaim a man destitute of a whole class of 
 virtues because of one failure in virtue! How much more unjust on account 
 of one fault to deny him all claim to any virtue whatsoever! Yet such is 
 frequently the very object of calumny. And, in general, this form of vice is 
 added to that just noted. Men first, in violation of the law of reciprocity, 
 make public the evil actions of others; and then, with a malignant power of 
 generalization, proceed to deny their claims, not only to a whole class of 
 virtues, but not unfrequently to all virtue whatsoever, 
 
 as, for instance, I am declared wholly unfit and unworthy of the office 
 as a minister of the Gospel, and this horrible dictu, though the charges 
 preferred against me are all based on falsehood and malicious cal- 
 umny. 
 
 These blacklisted and persecutors have forgotten that they are for- 
 bidden causelessly to injure another, even if he have done wrong. 
 Thereby they have forced me to follow the rule that whenever justice 
 can be done, or innocence protected, in no other manner than by a 
 course which must injure him, we are under no such prohibition. 
 Just here Doctor Wayland rightly remarks: 
 
 No man has a right to expect to do wrong with impunity; much less has 
 he a right to expect that, in order to shield him from the just consequences of 
 his actions injustice should be done to others, or that other men (such as Ny- 
 strom, Frank Swanson, Olander, Hedeen, Jacobson, etc.) shall by silence de- 
 liver up the innocent and unwary into his power. 
 
 The principle by which we are to test our own motives, in speaking of that 
 which may harm others, is this: When we utter anything which will harm 
 another, and we do it either without cause, or with pleasure, or thoughtlessly, 
 we are guilty of calumny. When we do it with pain and sorrow for the of- 
 fender, and from the severe motive of protecting the innocent, of promoting 
 the ends of public justice, or for the good of the offender himself, and speak 
 of it only to such persons and in such manner as is consistent with these ends. 
 
71 
 
 we may speak of the evil actions of others, and yet be wholly innocent of 
 calumny. 
 
 We are therefore bound to speak of the faults of others: 
 
 1. To promote the ends of public justice. He who conceals a crime against 
 a society renders himself a party to the offence. We are bound to speak of it 
 in order that it may be brought to trial and punishment. The ordinary preju- 
 dice against informing is unwise and immoral. He who, from proper mo- 
 tives, informs against crime performs an act as honorable as that of the 
 judge who tries the case, or of the juror who returns the verdict. That this 
 may be done from improper motives alters not the case. A judge may hold 
 his office for the love of money, but this does not make the office despicable. 
 
 2. To protect the innocent. If I know of a plan laid for the purpose of se- 
 duction (or other crime) I am bound to make use of that knowledge to defeat 
 it. All that is required here is that I know what I assert to be the fact, and 
 that I use it simply for the purposes specified. 
 
 3. For the good of the offender himself. No wicked person has a right to 
 expect that the community will keep his conduct secret from those who have 
 a right specially to be informed of it. He who does is partaker in the guilt. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, in the trial of Henry Croswell, also unfolds 
 the doctrine of the liberty of the press in the following remarkable 
 words : 
 
 The liberty of the press consists in the right to publish with impunity the 
 truth, with good motives, and for justifiable ends, whether it respects govern- 
 ments, magistrates, or individuals. 
 
 This is also the reason why I have tried to prevail upon the Synod’s 
 organ, August ana, to take up the case, so as to bring about a fair treat- 
 ment of the issues involved. This is also the reason why I sent the 
 bulk of items contained in this book to a few of the ministers, and 
 why I asked the Synod’s vice-president, etc., to assist in getting the 
 matter printed in any of the plants of the Synod. And only when all 
 these efforts proved to be futile did I begin to employ private print- 
 ers, though with the understanding that only those more directly con- 
 cerned should have a copy of these letters, wherein I have endeavored 
 to generalize and as much as possible avoid mentioning the faults of 
 the blacklisters, except in cases w T here it has been unavoidable to meet 
 their own unwarrantable actions. 
 
 Withal, this book does not cover the whole subject, and another 
 volume may consequently have to be issued, the letters and evidences 
 of the matter being stored up in a safe vault here in New Hampshire. 
 
 There is no use for the blacklisters to claim that the money spent 
 for printing these articles ought to have been used to pay debts, etc. 
 Those who have advanced this money would feel offended if it were 
 not used for the purpose they intended it for. Preaching and wit- 
 nessing to the truth will thus be carried on by me, who believes 
 
that if Jesus himself would incognito take a job in the service of the 
 Synod, in their present state of mind, the blacklisted would be the 
 first to advise the nailing of Him to some board, etc. 
 
 Having merely warned some Concord leaders that God is on my 
 side, and that it is wrong of them to think that, in the sight of God, 
 they only are murderers who plunge a steel knife through their vic- 
 tims; and, in order to escape a trap set for me, one Sunday, 1906, 
 instead of the secretary of the parish, I having insisted upon read- 
 ing the minutes of the general meeting of the parish, I have been de- 
 clared to be unaccountable for my actions, etc., when for such and 
 similar reasons I have been thrown to the dogs and driven helplessly 
 into debts, etc. ; — what would such blacklisted or leaders have done to 
 Jesus, who dared to call a Herod “a fox,” and the dignified leaders of 
 the people “vipers,” and a disciple “Satan,” etc.; nay, who even 
 whipped people, and about whom Publius Lentulus, governor of 
 Judea, wrote to the senate of Rome that this Jesus was terrible in re- 
 proving and of a countenance such as the beholder may both love and 
 fear? Nay, what would these blacklisted have done to David, who, 
 according to I Sam. 21, to save his life even feigned himself mad in 
 the hands of the king of Achish, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate 
 and let the spittle fall upon his beard? 
 
 Here it may perhaps be proper to clear away possible misunder- 
 standings as to the reasons for the sudden close of my labors at Gard- 
 ner. To do so, I beg leave to hereby disclose my letter addressed to 
 that parish in July, the 19th, and printed in Skandinavia, when no 
 protection could be secured from the Conference officials : 
 
 To the beloved church council and members of the Scandinavian Lutheran 
 Church of Gardner, Mass.: Grace and Peace! 
 
 When in April your call extended to me was accepted, it was done with the 
 understanding that the ministerial bosses, who have caused my present strait- 
 ened condition, would finally render it possible for me to leave Concord in the 
 middle of this month, if not before. In this my belief, I was sustained by the 
 resolutions carried at the meeting of the Synod in June, 1907, which resolu- 
 tion, printed in the records of the Synod, reads as follows: 
 
 CONTRIBUTION TO PASTOR C. J. A. HOLMGREN. 
 
 On account of a petition from the New York Conference to, it possible, assist 
 Pastor Holmgren in his present straitened situation, it was carried: 
 
 1. That a contribution at the rate of $2 from each pastor be taken up for 
 the benefit of Pastor Holmgren. 
 
 2. That Pastor J. A. Bernhard be steward of his money. 
 
 3. That the Conference presidents see to it that this resolution is carried out. 
 
 From this promised and publicly announced source I have still to expect 
 
 $748.02. The amount given me during the past thirteen months has been for- 
 
78 
 
 warded in such small sums that the adequate and lasting benefit from such 
 contributions has been withheld from me, who needed the whole amount at 
 once in order to render an honorable removal from Concord possible instead 
 of, as now, compelling me to spend it on traveling expenses on my Sunday vis- 
 its to Gardner, I having all this time been kept in suspense by the decoy or 
 vain hope that the bulk of this contribution was on its way to make it pos- 
 sible for us to move within a short time. My friends and creditors, who have 
 assisted us hitherto in keeping the wolf from the door, have also strongly 
 advised me to endeavor to get things straightened up before I leave Concord, 
 where I am well known for years. 
 
 The ecclesiastical rules prescribing that a pastor has to move to a con- 
 gregation within three months after accepting its call, and the time now being 
 up, there remains nothing else than that the congregation convenes to extend 
 a call to a pastor who can come within the stipulated time, or else to resolve 
 to wait for the possibility for me to come some time in the near future, al- 
 though the prospects are not very bright, as, for instance, Rev. Bernhard has 
 written to one of my creditors that after this nothing more will be paid to 
 me, thereby branded as a deceiver and absconder, the public being ignorant of 
 the fact that the ministerial bosses have deprived me of the moral and finan- 
 cial support every pastor has a right to expect and demand from his church. 
 Thus, for instance, during my first two years in Concord I received only $150 
 from the board of the Conference, while my successor, Rev. Norden, was as- 
 sisted to $500. Such injustices may give an inkling of the many other wrongs 
 perpetrated against me under the old pretext of the lamb and the wolf by 
 the brook. 
 
 During the eleven months I have served you, particularly on Sundays, I have 
 strived to comply with your cherished wishes that I should come to you well 
 recommended from my last charge. To that end I tried to get our Swedish 
 New England weekly, Svea, to right the wrongs it perpetrated on February 7, 
 1906, when that paper allowed its Concord correspondent to publicly brand me 
 as one using the weapons of lies when stating that the membership of the 
 congregation had almost doubled during my ministry. Having in view to 
 remove to Gardner this summer, I therefore desired to ask the people of Con- 
 cord to be allowed to leave them with a clean record. To that end, I caused 
 to be printed in Svea of the 24th of last June the names of the respective 
 members of the congregation, and requested that each name should be taken 
 up and an investigation made as to my rights of having used them in my 
 statement. The names were printed, but instead of compelling him to dwell 
 on the. names, the editor of Svea allowed its correspondent to reply by bring- 
 ing in a number of other accusations, evidently to get the attention of the 
 public from the propriety of a fair trial and a consistent discussion on the 
 unjust charges made against me in 1906. Anyone can see that with such 
 persecutors there is no chance for a wronged man to get his rights, especially 
 as Svea refused to take in any more replies made by me. 
 
 When the apostles Paul and Silas were imprisoned at Philippi, Paul as- 
 serted: “They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have 
 cast us into prison; and now they do thrust us out privily? Nay, verily, but 
 let them come themselves and fetch us out.” 
 
 Without trial, my ministerial bosses have abused me without just cause, 
 I having done nothing but my Christian duty in developing the congregations 
 and faithfully and successfully working for the welfare of my church. Such 
 
74 
 
 crimes or offenses committed by the Conference officials against me are con- 
 trary to the laws of nature and of all nations, to wit, even against the Ameri- 
 can laws, according to which as an American citizen I ought to have been ex- 
 empted from such evil treatment. These bosses do now want to thrust me 
 out from Concord in such a way that no one shall know of my innocence. 
 
 With the examples of Paul and Silas before me, the Spirit of Truth and 
 Mercy demands that those who publicly disgraced me ought also to publicly 
 announce my innocence. The treatment I have been subjected to is in fact a 
 good deal more inhuman than the apostles were subjected to. When they left 
 their prison they did not leave a number of creditors, whom, notwithstanding 
 their willingness to do them right, they were rendered unable to compensate. 
 Nay, in contrast to this, I am not only branded as an object of ridicule and 
 pity, barring the chances of promotion in my church, but as a deceiver on ac- 
 count of my unavoidable debts, that will ruin and impede my progress in 
 whatever new calling I may enter. No wonder that one of the ex-officials 
 of the Conference could write to me that he considers me to have been treated, 
 to say the least, shamefully and unrighteously as a reward for all my inces- 
 sant and faithful services. 
 
 During the late years I have by means of circular letters endeavored to im- 
 plore the bosses to be more considerate in the future, and see to it that the 
 ministers of the Gospel may not be spoken against as evil doers; also remind- 
 ing them of the difficulties connected with moving my large family into an en- 
 tirely new community, as matters now stand. 
 
 Last year, a Nebraska pastor answered me upon one of my circulars that if 
 it were the will of God that I should receive a call to continue as pastor of 
 a church, he would get me a call, no matter how many were against it and 
 tried to hinder it. Simultaneously (in August, last year) Pastor Linell of 
 this Gardner congregation received a stroke of paralysis, and at once he wrote 
 and implored me to assist him a Sunday or two until he would recover from 
 the shock, he at the same time stating that God would recompense me for 
 assisting him. When he did not recover as soon as he had expected, he kept 
 on imploring me to keep on yet a little while, etc., until at last, seeing there 
 were no prospects of his recovery, the congregation, in January of this year, 
 asked me to become the successor of your beloved sick pastor. 
 
 But, notwithstanding that the prison doors were opened, independent of the 
 wishes of the authorities, Paul and Silas did not leave their prison at Philippi 
 before the authorities came and brought them out. But, notwithstanding that 
 my bosses have before them the good example set forth by the actions of the 
 heathen authorities of Philippi, who restored to the apostles the respect due 
 them, my bosses dp firmly resist the spirit of God, and, as Pharaoh of old, 
 hinder me making use of this call from Gardner. Nay, their accomplice, the 
 paper Svea, is doing its share to hinder me by refusing me a fair chance to 
 answer the charges preferred in that paper February 7, 1906, when even the 
 name of the Conference president. Dr. G. Nelsenius, was used to render the 
 libel or accusation credible. 
 
 Thus, even if, through the unsearchable ways of God, the door has been 
 opened for me to serve as your pastor, I am stopped by my bosses, who resist 
 the spirit of truth and charity. No man is able to fill a calling unless he pos- 
 sesses the prerequisites needed to fill that calling, which prerequisites for a 
 minister of the Gospel is what the apostle gives in I Tim. 3 :17 : “Moreover, 
 he must have a good report of them which are without, lest he fall into re- 
 
proach and the snare of the devil.” Besides all this, the bosses having denied 
 me the hand of fellowship in the spirit of comradeship, will, as they have 
 done in Concord, withhold from me the income I need for my family, etc., 
 here in Gardner; and for me to scatter my energies between the parish du- 
 ties and other work to earn a little extra will give occasion for the old pre- 
 text of the lamb and the wolf by the brook, and the work of my skulking, 
 envious brethren and tools of the ring would then have still worse disastrous 
 consequences, I having not yet been reassured of the protection the pastors of 
 the Synod are entitled to and without which they are unable to persevere in 
 tl^eir calling. 
 
 “God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonders to perform; 
 
 He plants His footsteps in the sea, 
 
 And rides upon the storm. 
 
 “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 
 
 But trust Him for His grace. 
 
 Behind a frowning providence 
 He hides a smiling face. 
 
 “Blind unbelief is sure to err, 
 
 And scan His work in vain. 
 
 God is His own interpreter, 
 
 And He will make it plain.” 
 
 Pray for us. For with the apostle do we declare, we trust that we have a 
 good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly. 
 
 The God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that 
 great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
 make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that 
 which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory 
 forever and ever. Amen. 
 
 With sincere gratitude to you all for all the love and reverence shown me in 
 the past, I am yours in the Lord, 
 
 (Signed) C. J. A. Holmgren. 
 
 Nay, why should there not be a limit to even the power of min- 
 isterial blacklisters ? A former president of the Boston District 
 writes me that there are occasions when we neither can nor are allowed 
 to remain silent. Furthermore, even the wives and children of min- 
 isters in predicament do not want their husbands and fathers to 
 despair, or to do as Rev. A. J. Wheeler, whom the “ devil of debt” 
 drove to drowning in the Hudson, and concerning whom the papers 
 state that he was formerly a pastor in Concord, and that he suddenly 
 left the city under a moral and financial cloud. 
 
 This latter incident reminds me of the hunter who shot a tiger and 
 thought he had killed him, but on his approaching the tiger sprang 
 up and, seizing the hunter by the knee, crushed the bone and then 
 fell back dead. The hunter found himself unable to walk and his 
 cries were not heard. After a few hours, however, he forgot the 
 
76 
 
 tiger and even the broken bones in his terrific struggle with thou- 
 sands of little ants. The prominent writer who relates this asserts 
 that it is so in many human experiences. It is not the great tiger 
 of calamity that kills us, but the little ant worries of everyday life, 
 something these blacklisted and sycophants must be well aware of 
 in their inveterate struggles to evade granting a brother his human 
 rights. 
 
 In a letter to the vice-president of the Synod, I have long ago ad- 
 mitted that it must be against the very grain of depraved human 
 nature to dare stand up for an oppressed brother against a powerful 
 ring of chums, who, like the judge in St. Luke 18, has no regard for 
 any one, these being rather inclined to side with Saul, who confesses 
 in Acts 22: 20: 
 
 And when the blood of Stephen, thy witness, was shed, I also was standing 
 by and consenting, and keeping the garments of them that slew him. 
 
 Still, as Saul was converted, there is hope that the conscientious- 
 ness and benevolence of the majority of the brethren, together with 
 the unction from on high, will make it possible for your poor brother 
 and others with him to escape from being condemned in the dark, 
 but receive the needed succor against these blacklisted, who, in their 
 cloak of righteousness, have turned their backs on him. 
 
 Indeed, I am so conscious of wishing well to others that I hardly 
 doubt of others ’ good will toward myself ; and it is so hard for me 
 to believe that the majority of you would have such a small organ of 
 benevolence that you would be utter disbelievers in disinterested good- 
 ness, and regard generosity which has no selfish end as imbecility. 
 
 Nay, why should not ministers of the Gospel, teachers in morals and 
 religion, follow up the admonition : 
 
 Judge not! Tbou canst not tell how soon the look of bitter scorn 
 
 May rest on thee, though pure thy heart as dew-drops in the morn. 
 
 Thou dost not know what freak of fate may place upon thy brow 
 
 A cloud of shame to kill the joy that rests ux>on it now. 
 
 Judge not ! 
 
 Judge not! but rather in thy heart let gentle pity dwell. 
 
 Man’s judgment errs, but there is One who “doetli all things well.” 
 
 Ever throughout the voyage of life this precept keep in view: 
 
 “Do unto others as thou wouldst that they should do to you.” 
 
 Judge not! 
 
 Judge not! for one unjust reproach an honest heart can feel 
 
 As keenly as the deadly stab made by the pointed steel. 
 
 The worm will kill the sturdy oak, though slowly it may die, 
 
 As surely as the lightning stroke swift rushiug from the sky. 
 
 Judge not! 
 
PART II 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I would not number among my list of friends, though gifted with fine man- 
 ners and good sense, the man who’d needlessly set foot upon a worm. 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 The Interdict. 
 
 Besides a box of groceries from some Concord charity, following 
 malediction or interdict arrived on Thanksgiving Day, 1908 : 
 
 We, the undersigned, are herewith discharging the painful duty of impart- 
 ing to you the decision made at the meeting of the New York Conference of- 
 ficials, Brooklyn, N. Y., November 16, 1908: 
 
 Whereas, Pastor C. J. A. Holmgren has not complied with the resolutions 
 carried December 3, 1907, he being still outside of a congregation of the Au- 
 gustana Synod, and as also he has sent out another circular, in its contents 
 alike those previously sent, therefore, at their meeting of November 16, 1908, 
 which, though summoned, Pastor Holmgren failed to attend; and in com- 
 pliance with aforesaid resolutions, and after the warnings from the president 
 and the other officials have all been futile, carried that, until next general 
 meeting of the Conference, Pastor Holmgren is suspended from the ministry, 
 “deeply” deploring that such step had to be taken. 
 
 Gustaf Nelsenius, President, 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 E. A. Zetterstrand, Secretary of the Conference, 
 
 Naugatuck, Conn. 
 
 Together with this communication, the Synod’s official organ, An , - 
 gustana, under the heading “Suspension,” falsely alleges that an im- 
 partial investigation and trial had been held during two days, Novem- 
 ber 19 and 20, 1907, it being then ascertained that my circular state- 
 ments could not be maintained as true. 
 
 Consequently, before a large circle of readers in America and 
 Sweden, secular Swedish papers in the United States are publishing 
 the following: 
 
 Because of having circulated grave though undemonstrable accusations 
 against the New York Conference officials, and as he does not belong to a con- 
 gregation, Pastor C. J. A. Holmgren of Concord, N. H., is, until next general 
 meeting of the Conference, suspended. 
 
7-8 
 
 Thus, in contrast to my own brotherly and justifiable endeavors in 
 private circulars to appeal solely before the parties more directly con- 
 cerned to get the bush-fight and blacklisting declared off, neck and 
 heel, they have now ruthlessly dragged me, as the witches of old, an 
 object of scorn and contempt, before the general public of two hemi- 
 spheres. 
 
 When a Man Is Down. 
 
 That blacklisted have free access to the press is furthermore plain 
 from the following article in the Swedish New England weekly, Svea, 
 of February 7, 1906 : 
 
 The circumstances rendering it necessary, it is hereby made public that 
 Svea's Concord correspondent, . . . has had nothing whatever to do with 
 the notice in Svea of last week, with reference to the annual meeting of the 
 Lutheran congregation of this place. Nevertheless, many have asked me how 
 I could make myself guilty of such exaggerations, etc., and I readily admit 
 that if I had been the author of said notice these reprehensions would have 
 been warranted. In the notice referred to, among other things, it is as- 
 serted : “The number of communicants has already reached the one hundred 
 mark, and has actually doubled within the nearly four years Pastor Holmgren 
 has served the congregation.” Indeed, this sounds well ! However, if one 
 wants to battle for a good cause why not make use of the weapons of truth? 
 From the pastor’s report at the annual meeting of 1902, -which report, by the 
 way, was such that it could be accepted, it shows that the communicant num- 
 ber at that time was eighty-eight; and as in this congregation accounts close 
 at each calendar year, it may be interesting to know that December 31, 1905, 
 the communicant number was eighty-nine. How, then, could the number have 
 doubled? At the request of members of the church council these com- 
 ments are made by the correspondent. The annual meeting is to be continued 
 tomorrow night, when the president of the New York Conference will be pres- 
 ent. 
 
 At present it will be a somewhat difficult matter to trace who of the 
 Svea staff permitted the above screwed criticism to be published, as 
 the two Swedish New England weeklies, Svea and Skandinavia, since 
 that time have changed owners, so that, for instance, Skandinavia is 
 now under the control of former Svea owners, while the former 
 Skandinavia manager is now Svea’s manager. These changes have 
 been so radical that even Gardner’s Skandinavia correspondent, who. 
 while I labored in Gardner a year ago, acquainted the public with 
 the love and esteem I was held in by the Gardner congregation, is now 
 in the employ of the former bosses and owners of Svea, whose former 
 Gardner correspondent, also having lauded me, is no longer engaged 
 by Svea. 
 
 Withal, when about three years ago, upon my urgent appeals I was 
 
79 
 
 given an opportunity to preach before the then vacant congregation at 
 Bridgeport, Conn., with a view of receiving a call, the bosses were 
 evidently afraid that my sermons would cut them off from influ- 
 encing the parish through its leaders, the deacons, etc. Therefore, Rev. 
 Cesander, who was present at both services, saw fit to cool down the 
 enthusiasm of the common people by winding up my services with a 
 short address, in which he strongly impressed upon the audience 
 that they have no idea how long a time it takes a pastor to prepare 
 for his sermons, the delivery of which seems to be such an easy mat- 
 ter. When thus in their nervous anxiety to smother and unfrock me 
 these bosses and their tools do not hesitate to oppose me, even in the 
 open, their secret deeds in the dark must be dark enough to render it 
 intelligible why the feigned efforts of the bosses to assist me are all 
 in vain. 
 
 Dangers Threatening Our National Life. 
 
 In the Third Supplement is already referred to how, in 1907, at my 
 premeditated departure from Concord to Gardner, Svea allowed its 
 Concord correspondent to draw the public’s attention from the pro- 
 priety of a consistent discussion and exhaustive inquiry when pe- 
 titioned by me to have the respective Concord communicants taken 
 up and commented upon, in order to evince if, according to the un- 
 just charges made in the above article of February 7, 1906, I had de- 
 served to be publicly branded as a liar, when in my compassionate ef- 
 forts to prevail upon the parish owners, or leaders, to lower the mem- 
 bership fees, I had reminded them of that during my ministry in Con- 
 cord the communicant number had almost doubled. 
 
 In view of that many families have a hard struggle to get along, 
 not having half the income the families of the stone-cutters have, such 
 a reduction of the membership fees means half the battle to a con- 
 scientious, hard-working and successful pastor, is, for instance, evident 
 from the following in the minutes of the Synod recorded communica- 
 tion from an Augustana pastor in Iowa : 
 
 Here in my parish I have often deplored that old people and several poor 
 families abstain from joining the congregation. They may hunger after the 
 word of God; they may crave for the Lord’s Supper; still, they keep aloof. 
 This because they think themselves not entitled to ask to be taken up as mem- 
 bers, unable as they are to pay the dues. The congregation has already sev- 
 eral non-paying members and from these the Synod demands a tax (about 60 
 cents), and for such reasons we are not particular having any more join us. 
 Is the Church then merely a business enterprise? The Synod seems to con- 
 sider it so. We do hope, however, that the Synod will wake up from its omin- 
 ous mistake. If above all, the Church is not an institution of charity, then 
 woe unto us! 
 
80 
 
 How heinous then to deny me my rights to leave Concord with a 
 clean record, and to punch upon a strenuous brother struggling for 
 the welfare of humanity ; and for this kindness towards man and brute 
 to publicly disgrace him as a thief, a liar, a madman, etc., in the same 
 style as the witches, the martyrs, Christ, etc., were handled by their 
 contemporaneous fellowmen ; and then to interdict him on the frothy 
 excuse that in the only way available, by means of round robins, and 
 as Gorky, in the name of humanity, he appeals for mercy. 
 
 How wrong of certain newspapers to uphold such atrocities! And 
 all this, though any sane man will side with Andrew Carnegie, keenly 
 . asserting : 
 
 If a judge were interested in a case you would not respect his decision, 
 would you? 
 
 In the well known book “ Moral Science” by the former president of 
 Brown University, it is rightly stated : 
 
 If it be wrong to injure my neighbor’s reputation within the limited circle 
 of my acquaintance, how much more wrong must it be to injure it throughout 
 a nation! . . . The conductor of a public press possesses no greater priv- 
 
 ileges than any other man, nor has he any more right than any other man to 
 use, or suffer to be used, his press for the sake of gratifying personal pique, 
 or avenging individual wrong, or holding up individuals without trial to pub- 
 lic scorn. Crime against society is to be punished by society, and by society 
 alone, and he who conducts a public press has no more right because he has 
 the physical power to inflict pain on any other individual. 
 
 In speaking of redeeming public life from scoundrelism, President 
 Roosevelt also states : 
 
 The successful man, whether in business or in politics, who has risen by 
 conscientious swindling of his neighbor, by deceit and chicanery, by unscrup- 
 ulous boldness and cunning, stands towards society as a dangerous wild beast. 
 The mean and cringing admiration which such a career commands among 
 those who think crookedly, or not at all, makes this kind of success perhaps 
 the most dangerous of all the influences that threaten our national life. 
 
 At any rate, how malevolent to first outlaw a man from a congre- 
 gation and then to jump on the fact of his being outside of it as a 
 hail fellow well met starting hole for an ex-officio proclamation, that, 
 for being outside of a congregation, he is interdicted and thrown to 
 the dogs, while already long ago, behind the scenes, this their Drey- 
 fus has been dispatched to his Devil’s Island! 
 
 Francis Wayland of Brown University, in his Practical Ethics, 
 rightly asserts that to diminish the esteem in which a man is held by 
 his fellows, to detract from the reputation which he has thus acquired, 
 is a great violation of justice ; nay, it may be a far greater violation 
 
81 
 
 of justice than robbing him of money. It has, moreover, the addi- 
 tional aggravation of conferring no benefit upon the aggressor beyond 
 that of the gratification of a base and malignant envy. 
 
 A Lorn Wretch, “Unpossessed of God’s Blessings.” 
 
 The Conference president, Nelsenius, did not even object to that 
 his name had been used in the above mentioned Svea article, insinuat- 
 ing that, at the meeting of the following day, February 8, 1906, I was 
 to be court-martialed for acts unbecoming and unworthy of a teacher 
 in morals and religion. 
 
 Moreover, at that same meeting, February 8, 1906, though in the 
 memories of the parish owners he had riveted that there were no 
 valid charges preferred against me, Doctor Nelsenius nevertheless 
 requested me to ask a deacon for forgiveness because at a meeting 
 with the church council I had reminded him of the inconsistency and 
 weakness displayed by this deacon in siding with the parish treasurer, 
 that among other things of a similar nature a family unable to pay for 
 more than seven months of the year should not belong to the parish, 
 though this family assures me that they will pay as soon as they are 
 able, they being temporarily embarrassed. 
 
 As Christ prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
 they do,” I consequently yieldingly asked that deacon for forgive- 
 ness, “provided his pastor’s course of proceedings had been un- 
 fathomable to him.” 
 
 Notwithstanding the agonies already brought down upon my family, 
 they now want me to become a regular member of this synagogue 
 and insanity commission, once more to be subjected to their immedi- 
 ate jurisdiction, though I am incapacitated to meet even the dues for 
 one month. Judging from previous experiences, they would show no 
 clemency, not considering that when I had anything to give I gave it 
 all, and that many are the $10 and $20 offered by me on the altar of 
 the Synod. 
 
 When the father of several of the Concord parish owners told my 
 wife how God’s blessings rest on some homes, while others have noth- 
 ing, he repeatedly relating that, in order to render the collection for 
 the San Francisco sufferers an even $4, his son, the treasurer, had 
 added 30 cents, she weighed in her heart how her family had con- 
 tributed 75 cents to that collection, and that she considered very small 
 that contribution, and not worth mentioning; and that, no doubt, 
 because of such our unconscious comparatively greater unassuming 
 
82 
 
 sympathy for humanity, her family is completely wrecked, and “ un- 
 possessed of God’s blessings,” as the old man insinuated. 
 
 At any rate, they would not stop considering my penury and want 
 being caused by the circumstance that coarse-grained blacklisted have 
 taken advantage of my readiness to serve, thereby giving them a 
 chance to also lay all their iniquity on me. 
 
 The Wolf and the Lamb by the Brook. 
 
 Even from the experiences I had sixteen years ago, I cannot but 
 scent from afar that, after a repetition of the old pretext of the 
 wolf and the lamb by the brook, and after a series of heartrending 
 mock trials and nightly meetings, and under a continuous fire of false 
 accusations and libellous articles in the press, etc., they would have 
 me hounded, excommunicated and utterly degraded, so as to collect 
 another ‘ ‘ rare ’ ’ flower for my ‘ ‘ funeral, ’ ’ I being not fit to be retained 
 even as an ordinary member of an Augustana congregation. 
 
 In 1890, while Rev. M. J. Englund was superintendent of the 
 Orphans’ Home at Jamestown, N. Y., and Rev. Aslev was a student- 
 preacher in the Warren District, where Rev. Norden then was pastor 
 at Ridgeway, Pa., the latter araigned me for being avaricious if I did 
 not abandon my exceedingly bright future in store in the large James- 
 town congregation, where I had worked for a year as assistant to the 
 aged pastor, Rev. Hultgren. Finally I yielded to Norden ’s entreaties 
 and moved to the place he had arranged for me, Mt. Jewett, Pa. 
 Notwithstanding this, that I had yielded to his overtures, he en- 
 deavored to persuade the Mt. Jewett people that they were giving 
 me a larger salary than they ought to, the people, however, replying 
 that they will stick to the promise stated in the call extended to me. 
 
 By the way, at that same meeting, the members insisting on that on a 
 previous occasion, and in my presence, Norden said what he now flatly 
 repudiates, he demanded me to stand up and give witness to the 
 truth. Being merely a candidate for the ministry, and knowing that 
 Norden was backed up by the ministerial bosses, I was in a veritable 
 rub. According to Luke 12 : 11, I could, however, relate how once in 
 1880, in a Boston boarding-house, I was so distracted as to repeatedly 
 ask for “butter,” while all the time thinking that I mentioned the 
 wanted ‘ ‘ sugar, ’ ’ so that it may be possible for a man to say something 
 he did not think he said. 
 
 Norden also wanted me to excommunicate a member of that con- 
 gregation because, according to him, the “sects” will look down upon 
 our Lutheran Church for having a member allowing dancing and beer- 
 
83 
 
 drinking at his home. To carry out such Norden ’s dictum would, 
 among other things, also deprive that man’s family from attending 
 services, Sunday-school, etc., wherefore, following my own discretion, 
 
 I had the satisfaction of seeing that man won for the cause of true 
 temperance and the cause of the Church, though he could not be per- 
 suaded from stating that Norden is foxy, evidently meaning that 
 Norden wanted me in titubations and wrong steps. 
 
 “True and Undefiled Religion.” 
 
 Thus, all things considered, even if by yielding and delivering my- 
 self up into the hands of the insanity commission this Norden is now 
 shepherding, I may be strong enough to stand the strain of being 
 jaded anew, there is, however, a limit to the power of endurance of 
 my children’s mother, who already too long has been writhing under 
 their relentless inhumanities, though otherwise she would have been 
 as strong as the majority of the ministers’ wives. 
 
 The God of mercy and truth has given me, too, sacred duties to 
 perform, duties to my family, higher than the creeds coarse-grained 
 natures so often are using as a cloak for their lack of charity. 
 
 Merely the circumstance that we are closely watched is about all 
 the strain of that nature Mrs. Holmgren is able to stand. It ought 
 to be plenty enough that we do not dare to attend services in any of 
 the other Concord churches, since Norden then would be supplied with 
 “welcome” opportunities for retarding and checking the forthcom- 
 ing of the speedy succor needed, just as, evidently in their hopes to 
 outlaw me by drawing out the time, he caused the president of the 
 Boston District, Rev. J. A. Bernhard, as a defender of “true and 
 undefiled religion,” ex-officio to start the preliminary inquiries pre- 
 ceding the pending public interdict, all on the strength of the stretched 
 reports that my children attend the Sunday-school of an Episcopal 
 church, which report caused me to print the Second Supplement, 
 dated September 27, 1907, in order to counteract the injury such 
 Norden ’s communications would else have wrought by retarding and 
 checking the forthcoming of the promised $2 from each of the nearly 
 600 pastors, which promise and resolution followed upon the issue of* 
 my first circulars and appeared to me as -preliminary steps to pay at 
 least the debts of about $3,000 the blacklisters have dragged me into. 
 
 Forsooth, these undermining stretched reports of the blacklisters 
 are, above all, debarring me from what is preeminently needed, i. e., 
 the ministers’ unanimous commendation before a duped people as to 
 my competency to fill any vacancy that would secure for me an income 
 
84 
 
 large enough to do away with all disgracing alms, which latter are 
 a means of throwing a veil over the wounds so ruthlessly made on 
 helpless brethren on the Jericho road. 
 
 Oil, Wine and Vinegar. 
 
 On his death-bed, Eev. T. 0. Linell, of Gardner, Mass., related to 
 me that at his visit from Boston, Mass., Rev. Johansson expressed 
 his belief that Linell’s stroke of paralysis, received in 1907, was a re- 
 sult from the ill treatment relating to his removal from North Easton, 
 Mass., Linell’s former charge; Linell deploring that Nelsenius, the 
 Conference president, had denied him, Linell, the backing needed to 
 weather the opposition waged by a couple of the North Easton parish 
 leaders. According to Linell, one of these inimical leaders communi- 
 cated with Rev. J. A. Anderson of Brockton, Mass., where he also 
 received the looked for encouragement, while on the other hand, hav- 
 ing communicated with the recently ordained fine-grained Rev. Mor- 
 ton of Providence, R. I., the response was that Linell was Morton’s 
 friend and that no encouragement could be had from Morton. 
 
 Comparing the cold treatment, Linell previously received at the 
 hands of hegemonical bosses, with the recent hurried efforts to take 
 up contributions of several hundred dollars for Mrs. Linell, besides 
 even prevailing upon the king of Sweden to make the young Rev. 
 Morton a. knight of Vasa, a rare honor only bestowed upon two other 
 of the Augustana pastors and chums of Doctor Lindberg, it looks 
 to me as my coarse-grained blacklisted were unnaturally straining 
 themselves to muzzle important testimonials, Mrs. Linell and Rev. 
 Morton being now, since the death of Linell, direct witnesses as to the 
 corroborating statements of Linell as to the character of certain lead- 
 ers, etc., Mrs. Linell being already won to their side, judging from 
 the circumstance that in April, 1908, wdien the Gardner congregation 
 was on the verge of extending its call to me, she told one of the 
 deacons that it would be unwise, as I cannot stay long in any place, 
 etc. 
 
 When some of the members related this to me, it w T as also stated 
 * that two years previous, w r hen this Gardner congregation w^as on the 
 verge of calling a pastor, a prominent member arose and asked why 
 the people could not extend a call to me, who at that time had been 
 recommended by Nelsenius, the Conference president; the presiding 
 pastor at that meeting, Rev. Beckman, replying that they ought not 
 to call me because of my large family. Thus it was easy to under- 
 stand why Nelsenius could write, April 14, 1905 : 
 
85 
 
 I recommended you to the Gardner congregation, but they turned their 
 own way. 
 
 The above is another proof as to that the brethren take back with 
 one hand what is given with the other. 
 
 Signal it is that though, after Linell’s stroke of paralysis, I labored 
 in Gardner from August, 1907, to July, 1908, the president of that 
 district, Rev. Engstrand of Worcester, Mass., and the son-in-law of 
 Rev. Johansson in Boston, in his reports and statements in the official 
 paper of that district, did not mention me as having gratuitously re- 
 sponded to LinelTs entreaties and appeals to assist him during his 
 sickness and distress. Neither did he mention that finally I re- 
 ceived a call from Gardner to be the permanent pastor of the place, 
 and that the district wished to extend its welcome to me. On the 
 other hand, without God’s direct intervention, they having secured 
 for my Concord successor, Rev. Norden, a call to the large Swedish- 
 Einnish congregation of Gardner, this president at once publishes 
 his hope that Norden will accept, and that the district extends to 
 him a hearty welcome. No wonder that the people have to look up to 
 such a well recommended and backed up man ; and that on account of 
 previous experiences it was of no use for me to accept the call to 
 the Swedish Lutheran Church of Gardner, though if I had been 
 backed up by the brethren, both that parish and the larger Swedish- 
 Einnish congregation of that town would have united under one pas- 
 tor, which in this case would have been me, who already for eleven 
 months successfully served the smaller one of the two. 
 
 Nay, even the Synod’s organ, Augustana, is no longer sent free to 
 me, they claiming that it is sent to pastors of the Synod only. 
 
 If ministerial ring-leaders deprive an old experienced pastor of the 
 needed moral and financial support, thereby cheering selfish parish 
 leaders or owners, perhaps desirous of securing unmarried pastors or 
 seminary students to court damsels of the congregation, to be instru- 
 mental in getting rid of such aged brother merely in order to lure 
 young students to congregate at the feet of Doctor Lindberg, clamor- 
 ing that there are so many fat parishes waiting for them, these med- 
 dlers or leaders, so anxious to secure a D. D. or other honors for 
 “faithful” service, are greatly mistaken if believing that such will 
 forever increase their patron’s and tutelary saint’s power and influ- 
 ence to do them a turn again. 
 
 The young men really worth having, those enabled to build up a con- * 
 gregation and add to the wealth and strength of the Synod, will 
 gradually become scared away the more they see men dumped at a 
 
86 
 
 time they are most in need of moral and financial backing, so as to 
 increase their usefulness and hold on the people; not to mention the 
 need of retaining a calling when they are most in need of keeping it 
 instead of being dumped, at best, merely to receive some high-sound- 
 ing alms. 
 
 So, in 1904, my son having heard Rev. Anderson of Brockton, Mass., 
 vociferously vilify me for having taken care of the New Sweden cat- 
 tle, reported to his mother what he had heard while on a visit in Cam- 
 bridge, Mass., he also asking what his father had done to draw upon 
 him such hatred. I then wrote to the Conference president for pro- 
 tection, at the same time sending him the letter from the owner of 
 the cow that had been milked. 
 
 As a result of this, Rev. Anderson asked if I were satisfied with a 
 collection taken up in all the congregations of the district. As, at the 
 same time, the other brethren of the Boston District began to assert 
 that something substantial must be done, one of them stating that each 
 pastor ought to give $5, and the parishes accordingly, I did not know 
 what to say, simply hoping that they would admit that it was not dis- 
 gracing alms, but a brother’s hand to restore to me my former stand- 
 ing that was needed. 
 
 The outcome of this display of sympathy turned out to be merely 
 $100, besides giving the leaders an opportunity of publishing what 
 a brotherly love prevails in the Boston District, such aids more re- 
 minding of the vinegar offered Christ on the Cross than the oil and 
 wine, etc., offered by the Samaritan to the wounded man on the Jeri- 
 cho road. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Do not be afraid; do not cry out, for life is good. I come from low down, 
 from the cellar of life, where darkness and terror reign, where man is half 
 beast, and life is only a fight for bread. It flows slowly there, in dark 
 streams, but even there beauty and love exist. Everywhere that man is found, 
 good is, in tiny particles and invisible roots — but still it is there. All these 
 roots will not perish. Some will grow and flourish and bear fruit. I bought 
 dearly the right to believe this, therefore it is mine my whole life long. And 
 thus I have won yet another right, the right to demand that you, too, believe 
 as I do, for I am the voice of that life, the despairing cry of those who remain 
 below and who have sent me to herald their pain. They also long to rise to 
 self-respect, to light and freedom. 
 
 From, Gorky's Suppressed Novel. 
 
 President Taft's Statement. 
 
 How wrong of these blacklisters to now publicly degrade me as be- 
 ing deposed for having sent out these appeals, these circulars, I having 
 merely endeavored to defend my home, my creditors, who with me 
 have believed in the brotherhood of man and ministers ; nay, principles 
 of the greatest importance to the cause of country and Christ ! How 
 mean of them to jump on the circumstance that the Third Supple- 
 ment is dated 'in October, while in fact it was not mailed, nay, not 
 even printed, before, on the 9th of this November, the summons came 
 for me to face the charges in regard to sending my children to the 
 Episcopal Church, this Third Supplement being an appeal for an open 
 trial to avoid star chamber hearings, such as the fictitious trial in the 
 night of November 19-20, 1907. 
 
 What do they mean by now publishing in two hemispheres that my 
 circular statements cannot be maintained as true ? Are they to hood- 
 wink, nay, even threaten certain individuals to not remember any- 
 thing? Are they to become perjurers, notwithstanding the risk they 
 run thereby? Are they simply relying on President Taft’s assertion 
 that delay always works to the detriment of the poor litigant? Is it 
 because they have recently sent away to India one of my best wit- 
 nesses, Dr. C. W. Foss, the ex-president of the school at Rock Island, 
 111 .? 
 
 Though another of the teachers of that school, Doctor Williamson, 
 is dead, there must still be others from those days I attended that in- 
 stitution willing to testify to my sympathy and love towards the 
 
88 
 
 original blacklisted, they having had no cause whatever for throwing 
 out such leaven of acrimony. 
 
 So, for instance, I had nothing whatever to do with the dismissal 
 of Missionary Lilja ’s son, who was dismissed in 1887. Upon the re- 
 quest of Doctor Williamson, the boy was allowed to room with me. I 
 loved him, I prayed for him and knew nothing of his wrong-doings, be- 
 fore it was reported to me by Williamson. And not before the boy’s 
 dismissal from the school did it flash upon my mind his doings of a 
 similar nature at the time I had resided in the home of Lilja at 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., when Dr. C. E. Lindberg, then president of the 
 New York Conference and the patron and staunch protector of Lilja, 
 fetched the prodigal from Philadelphia back to his parents. 
 
 Lindberg, Lilja, Englund, et Comp. 
 
 Twenty-one years ago, during my first school year at Rock Island, 
 111., a newcomer from Sweden, now the to Sweden returned Rev. G. 
 Juhlin, stated before students that the still unordained emigrant-mis- 
 sionary Lilja averred that, actuated by base motives, I had appeared 
 at the Synod’s school to prepare for the ministry. Besides such and 
 similar tactics, the professor in Swedish and Christianity, Rev. C. M. 
 Esbjorn, and his temporary assistant, the seminary student Zetter- 
 strand, tried to so discourage me that, if the other professors had not 
 time and again reassured me of the Synod’s need of me, I would have 
 returned to finish my preparations for entering mechanical engineer- 
 ing. That such initiatory blacklisting was the leaven, the foghorn sig- 
 nal, the precursor or harbinger, of the subsequent incessant stone- 
 throwing, is obvious enough. 
 
 Having previously assisted Lindberg while clerking in a Pennsyl- 
 vania coal mine, in 1882 Lilja had quit his work as a street car con- 
 ductor and was assisted to the position as a solicitor of funds for the 
 Swedish church of Philadelphia. While working in this capacity, 
 Lindberg, then pastor in New York, N. Y., took Lilja up to the 
 Roman Catholic bishop of Philadelphia to ask that collections be taken 
 up in the Catholic churches for the Lutheran church of Philadelphia. 
 The reply was : 
 
 My dear brother Lindberg, you know very well that I cannot do that; you 
 know that. But here is $5 as my private contribution. 
 
 Subsequently, after Lilja had moved to Brooklyn and was by 
 Lindberg assisted to the position as emigrant-missionary at Castle 
 Garden, conflicts arose between Lindberg and Rev. J. A. Rodell, 
 
89 
 
 Brooklyn, the latter claiming that in matters pertaining to marriages, 
 baptisms, etc., Linclberg trespassed upon the territory of Brooklyn. 
 
 Sympathizing with Rodell, who had a family to support besides fail- 
 ing in health, and I being a member of his congregation, I consoled 
 Rodell as much as possible, endeavoring at the same time to put the 
 best constructions upon his rival’s doings, stating that on account of 
 Lindberg ? s dignified bearing people will, as a rule, look up to him as 
 a natural leader, he himself at the same time taking things joke- 
 fully, as, for instance, his visit to the Roman Catholic prelate indi- 
 cates. When Lilja himself did not seem to make any secret of that 
 visit to that bishop, can it be possible that having mentioned it to 
 Rodell I am also for such reasons to be frozen out of my calling ? 
 
 I have been requested to explain why, having entered the ministry 
 through no back door, but through years of the hardest studies, I am 
 a crow to be plucked. I must confess that to explain this is a difficult 
 task without risking to do possible injustice to Lindberg, whom I love 
 as a fellow-pilgrim towards eternity. The desperate condition I am 
 brought into compels me, however, to divulge my own theories in the 
 matter, while leaving to Lindberg and those, who have had anything 
 to do with him in these lines, to judge how near these views are to the 
 real thing. 
 
 The Ascendency of Lindberg. 
 
 According to certain mental sciences : 
 
 There are individuals endowed with such large development of brain mat- 
 ters in the faculty of the self-esteem that in their magnificent notions of their 
 own respectability they are prompted, in comparing themselves with others, to 
 depreciate them, in order to raise themselves in the scale of comparative ex- 
 cellence. Inferior talents, combined with a strong endowment of self-esteem, 
 are often crowned with far higher success than more splendid abilities joined 
 with this sentiment in a feebler degree. 
 
 In this connection we may here refer to that when, through the 
 influence of the chums, especially in the New York Conference, in 
 1890 Lindberg walked into the chair as doctor in dogmatics at the 
 Rock Island Seminary, the editor of the Synod’s organ in those days, 
 Dr. S. P. A. Lindahl, at a party ridiculed the absent Lindberg for his 
 lack of genuine college erudition, manifested by, for instance, Lind- 
 berg ’s way of pronouncing the word “cholera.” 
 
 As, according to the referred to mental sciences, envy is the result 
 of Self-esteem offended by the excellence or superior happiness of 
 others, and calling up Destructiveness to hate them, such may there- 
 
90 
 
 fore be the reason that when entering the seminary, in 1890, after 
 I had told Lindberg that the usual printed biographies of the out- 
 going class of ministers would at all events render me due credit be- 
 fore the uninitiated public, that I have spent 3 r ears and years on* 
 school benches to prepare for my calling in life, and that he ought to 
 consider it a waste of time, at my advanced age, to spend two or three 
 years in the seminary, when I am not only able but also willing to 
 go through the seminary subjects, though in less time than the stud- 
 ents who have not spent so many years as I have in preliminary 
 studies, Lindberg then met me with the disdainful dictum that such 
 biographies will be discontinued, something similar to the derisive 
 laughter Lindberg ’s chum, Rev. C. M. Esbjorn, greeted me with in 
 1887 while Lindberg still was pastor in New York City and I had en- 
 tered the Rock Island College; I having already in 1882 met this 
 Esbjorn, together with Lilja, Lindberg, Englund and Petri at Phila- 
 delphia. Thus, in 1890, seeing the ever-increasing ascendency of 
 Lindberg, I began to brood over the uselessness of preparing for 
 the ministry, as, no matter what I did in order to become efficient and 
 deserving, the spirit of detraction would finally blacklist me out of 
 my calling and belongings, and that, at such time I most of all needed 
 to retain my hold. So, for instance, in one of his letters, Rev. Frank 
 Swensson states : 
 
 Our system of promotion is condemnable. If only one is on good terms with 
 the big ones, there is no difficulty, even if one is not much of a pastor. 
 
 Therefore, my destiny being in the hands of Lindberg and his 
 satellites, they also being averse to me, such divinations so engrossed 
 my thoughts that either must the engagement with my betrothed, 
 entered while I prepared for the mechanical engineering, be broken, 
 I having no moral right to expose a family to the persecutions that 
 would surely follow; or else I had to give up the thoughts of enter- 
 ing the ministry. 
 
 As a preliminary withdrawal and getting away from the immediate 
 influence of my friends and backers at the school, such as the two 
 presidents, Hasselquist and Foss, I sympathetically responded to an 
 urgent call for a seminary preacher to serve the large First Lutheran 
 Church of Jamestown, N. Y., whose aged pastor was dangerously ill, 
 the fall term, 1890. 
 
 As only a physician’s letter could prevail upon Doctor Hassel- 
 quist to let me leave, such was, however, an easy matter, as in this 
 slough of despondency, I could claim it to be almost impossible to get 
 any sleep, which might end in nervous prostration. 
 
91 
 
 Though even here at Jamestown the influence of this bossism was 
 felt in the person of Lindberg’s chum, -Rev. Englund, then superin- 
 tendent of the New York Conference Orphans’ Home at Jamestown, 
 N. Y., the love and favors encircling me in the large Jamestown par- 
 ish cheered and strengthened me to abide with the wishes of my con- 
 genial teachers and friends, etc. ; in all this also strongly backed up 
 by my wife, who, in her childish faith in the angeldom of ministry, 
 could not comprehend the sanity of my grave apprehensions as to the 
 future, that the ring-leaders should even make use of my family as a 
 co-agency to rob me of my God-given calling. 
 
 B. D., D. D., R. N. 0., T. F., Etc. 
 
 At a visit to my Jamestown home, and seeing my college diploma, 
 Englund asked me if I did not think that he, too, could get such a 
 diploma, he thereby linking my thoughts to that those who earn it 
 will get it in the ordinary way, while others, who are chums of Lind- 
 berg, etc., will not only get such, but still higher titles of honor. 
 
 This Englund has recently walked into the chair as one of the 
 editors of the Synod’s paper, Augustana, and as a preliminary step 
 is just awarded the title D. D. from some institution in Pennsylvania, 
 where Lindberg’s and comp, influence is prevailing. 
 
 Lindberg has also elevated Lilja into the ministry, this favored 
 man running abreast and coming up to the same thing and more than 
 I, who also in pursuance to Lindberg’s course of proceedings, belong 
 to “the other graduates” from the seminary. 
 
 Doctor Nelsenius, the New York Conference president, has recently 
 received two D. D. titles, while M. Lonner, who was strongly ad- 
 monished by worthy professors at the Synod’s school to not enter the 
 ministry, is assisted to good charges, and who writes to me, who has 
 passed through the preliminary studies, that the man who takes good 
 care of himself has a bright future in store in the Synod; he at the 
 same time upbraiding me for not providing for my family. 
 
 This crushing of me, who through hard work has endeavored to 
 make myself worthy of good marks, and, on the other hand, the ele- 
 vation of a circle of satellites, to a certain extent having entered 
 the ministry through the back door, may be caused by Lindberg’s 
 natural disposition to measure himself by himself and to condemn the 
 opinion of all those who differ from him. Therefore, such men also 
 set the opinions of society proudly at defiance. 
 
 So, for instance, at the time he was unaware that I was a crow to 
 be plucked by the ring, Doctor Nelsenius informed me that when a 
 
92 
 
 certain congregation out West was on the verge of calling a certain 
 pastor, in the decisive moment a despatch from Lindberg changed 
 their decision, this especially as the votes are not cast as in presidential 
 elections, but by saying aye or no; and who would openly dare to 
 oppose such a dignified man, who upholds a system of promotion, 
 which, to use the expression of brethren, is condemnable; Lindberg 
 having also alongside of his other methods secured for himself the 
 right of dividing the graduates of the seminary into two classes, “the 
 other graduates” and “the graduates,” the latter having graduated 
 after my time, and not debarred from the privilege of being adver- 
 tised with a B. D. sign affixed to their names in the public records of 
 the Synod. 
 
 It is, of course, an easy matter for these chums to tell me to leave 
 my calling and do something else, they not considering that, while it 
 has cost them comparatively nothing to prepare for it, I have spent 
 years and years in preparations, also taking the studies seriously. 
 
 In 1890, one of the school presidents, owing to my age and previous 
 studies, and also my head for studies, advised me to not spend any 
 time at all in the theological seminary, but to pass through a special 
 examination in what they call the minimum course. At that juncture, 
 a warm friend of Lindberg, Dr. C. A. Evald, Chicago, 111., wrote me 
 that I will greatly regret if I do not take the full course, and graduate 
 from the seminary. 
 
 Having finally acceded to this latter advice, and being a graduate, 
 I do not only find myself deprived of the advertisement of a B. D. in 
 the public records, but deprived of all other requisite moral and 
 financial backing; nay, dumped in a most inhuman manner. If I 
 had spent less time for preparations, it would have been much easier 
 to weather these attacks of the blacklisters, who bask in the sunshine 
 of Lindberg ’s favor and protection, and who have taken advantage of 
 my willingness to serve, and then withdraw from me the needed pre- 
 requisites to get along. 
 
 Here we may again refer to the assertions made by the president of 
 Brown University : 
 
 Every man is, by the laws of his Creator, entitled to the physical results of 
 his labors. . . . The industrious student is entitled not merely to the 
 
 use of that knowledge which he has acquired, but also to the estimation which 
 the possession of that knowledge gives him among men. Now these sec- 
 ondary and indirect results are as truly effects of the character and actions 
 of the man himself, and they as truly belong to him, as the primary and di- 
 rect results of which we have spoken. And hence to diminish the esteem in 
 which a man is held by his fellows, to detract from the reputation which he 
 has thus acquired, is as great a violation of justice, nay, it may be a far 
 
93 
 
 greater violation of justice than robbing him of money. It has, moreover, 
 the additional aggravation of conferring no benefit upon the aggressor beyond 
 that of the gratification of a base and malignant envy. 
 
 When, for instance, the chum of Lindberg, Doctor Forsander, as 
 teacher in church history, etc., claimed that, though my final examina- 
 tions entitled me to the highest marks, he could not grant me anything 
 but much lower marks because I had spent merely three terms in the 
 seminary, I may here ask why then could the faculty of the school 
 confer upon Doctor Lindberg and chums a graduation diploma from 
 the college department, though, according to the reports in the papers 
 a few years ago, when this took place, Lindberg, etc., were not students 
 of the college, but doctor, etc., in dogmatics in the seminary depart- 
 ment? 
 
 By the way, it may here be mentioned that at leaving the school 
 of the institution in several instances I had received lower marks than 
 I had deserved ; yea, even still lower marks in the books of the institu- 
 tion than were recorded in my college diploma, which fact was acci- 
 dentally revealed to me when a few years ago I asked for a duplicate 
 of this diploma. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call “retreat”; 
 
 He is searching out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. 
 
 Be swift, my soul, to answer him; be jubilant my feet; 
 
 While God is marching on. 
 
 Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 
 
 Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 
 
 Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 
 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 Stricken, Smitten of God and Afflicted. 
 
 Dr. A. Bergin of Lindsborg, Kan., who at a visit in Concord in- 
 formed Mrs. Holmgren that, seeing that I am of a balanced mind, it 
 will be his duty to endeavor to counteract the slanderous reports cur- 
 rent out West that I am demented; and, sympathizing with us, writes 
 and asks me why I am not willing to suffer martyrdom. 
 
 The fact is, however, that all my life I have patiently submitted 
 to the abuses from the coarse-grained people I have had to deal with, 
 so that a man of my age, and furthermore with such a large family 
 to provide for, by this time ought to be pretty near done up and 
 crippled as a consequence of these abuses. In my desire to make 
 others happy, I have also kept away from complaining when it mat- 
 ters my own self. This, though well-known pastors of the Synod, 
 such as Rev. G. E. Forsberg, for years one of the executive officers of 
 the New York Conference, writes me : 
 
 I deplore that you have met with such ill turns. Thus you, too, have caught 
 a glimpse of the hearts of Ahlquist, Anderson and Kjellstrand. It seems that 
 Kjellstrand ill requitted you for the hospitality which he and his young dame 
 (second wife) enjoyed at your (Newport) home; and that the Conference ill 
 requits you for your sedulous, faithful and sacrificing work in Newport. In 
 rich measure you have experienced the truth of the old saying that ingratitude 
 is the recompense or remuneration bestowed by the world. 
 
 Delving into another side of the question, according to the Lutheran 
 creed, we should not have more than one wounded for our transgres- 
 sions and bruised for our iniquities; and if we want another one to 
 be despised and rejected by men, we forget that as chastisement fell 
 upon those who crucified their best friend, certain destruction is also 
 in store for those who again “esteem a man stricken, smitten of God 
 and afflicted, ’ 1 as it was said of our only Saviour. In the comparative 
 
95 
 
 ease and plenty you are enjoying life, you do not see the danger as 
 your brother, “taken away by oppression and judgment.” There is 
 a grievous correction for him that forsaketh the way; and he that 
 hateth reproof shall die. 
 
 It is rightly said, “It is not desirable to yield to others when they 
 are wrong, merely for the sake of peace, because abiding peace cannot 
 be gained by subservience to any form of error. ’ ’ The issues involved 
 are not merely referring to my own duty to provide for my own house- 
 hold and for the welfare of your future or eternal condition ; but the 
 Bible tells me that I have no right to shrink into silence, not daring 
 to speak for those subjected to a reign of terror and darkness, con- 
 cerning which Jesus Christ says: 
 
 Woe unto you Pharisees! for ye laden men with burdens grievous to be 
 borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. 
 
 With the widow, I have cast into the temple treasury all the living 
 that I had. I cannot go any further. The limit being reached, there 
 is nothing else but to abide with the words of Christ, prescribed as 
 the text of my inaugural sermon at Concord, in 1902, which text also 
 says : 
 
 Everyone, therefore, who shall confess me before men, him will I also con- 
 fess before my Father which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny me 
 before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven. 
 
 If, while doing this, my body is to be killed, then and only then am 
 I a martyr ; and such martyrdom I am willing to undergo, if it be His 
 will, who over against the threats that have been made against me 
 asserts, in the same text : 
 
 And be not afraid of them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the 
 soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in 
 hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall 
 fall to the ground without your Father: but the very hairs of your head are 
 all numbered. Fear not, therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. 
 
 Neither does it follow, to use the conclusion in Labory’s defense of 
 Dreyfus : 
 
 That the whole army is involved, because some have shown too much 
 zeal and haste, and others too much credulity; because there has been a 
 serious forgetfulness of right on the part of one, or of several. . . . Let 
 
 your verdict signify several things: First, “Long live the army (ministry);” 
 but also “Long live the Republic! and long live France (America)!” That 
 is, gentlemen, “Long live eternal Justice!” 
 
96 
 
 The Augustana Editors. 
 
 Dr. M. J. Englund, having recently abandoned his charge as pastor 
 in Greenwich, R. I., and having entered his new field of work as one of 
 the editors of Augustana , the Synod’s organ, as one of his first acts 
 permits the officials of the New York Conference to publish the dis- 
 gracing article as to my suspension, thereby keeping the public and 
 the majority of the brethren in the dark, and cutting off the forth- 
 coming of the urgently needed rescue. This publication, though “de- 
 plored ’ ’ by them, is indeed like the ‘ ‘ solemn discourses, ’ ’ the witch ser- 
 mons, preached by the clergy of old and, connected with every sacri- 
 fice, has the effect to inspire with fresh zeal to collect fuel for another. 
 
 Dr. L. G. Abrahamson, the chief editor of Augustana, may differ 
 from me in being more exclusive, still, he having previously refused to 
 take in my appeals to the Synod, it is hard for me to think that he 
 could have freely granted the blacklisted access to the paper, he 
 being able to answer them that it would be much easier for them than 
 for me to employ private circulars to meet my statements. Already, 
 while pastor in Chicago, Doctor Abrahamson has for years and 
 years received a munificent income, not only as pastor, but as treasurer 
 of a large life insurance company, and as promoter of land affairs, 
 etc., and thus while he is living in the profusion of plenty, there is a 
 likelihood that his large benevolence is prevailing upon his consci- 
 entiousness, so that he feels somewhat uneasy to have allowed himself 
 to be imposed upon to let an article be published that condemns and 
 disgraces an outlawed and bleeding brother on the Jericho road, a 
 brother whom his fine intellect tells him would, if Abrahamson were 
 in need, divide with him the last loaf. 
 
 Another thing it is with Englund, who, on account of his large or- 
 gan of destructiveness and small organ of benevolence, seems to be 
 blind to the obligations of justice, piety and mercy, he evidently being 
 the most responsible for this heinous wrong, in full accordance with 
 the statement made some years ago by the former editor of Augustana, 
 Dr. S. P. A. Lindahl, who remarked concerning this Englund, or 
 Comes, as he calls himself: 
 
 Some years ago we denied him the rights to use the columns of Augustana 
 to blacklist brethren in his own conference. 
 
 Rome, Roosevelt and the Lutheran Church. 
 
 In this his wanton love of destructiveness Englund does not even 
 spare the president of the United States, whom he now accuses as 
 
97 
 
 one who does not know what he says. In a recent Augustana article 
 he goes on to say: 
 
 For reasons tangible to us, President Roosevelt did not reply to the pro- 
 test made by the Missouri Synod. We could not see our way clear how he 
 could do it without considerably modifying what he erewhile has said. It 
 was not easy for him to do so, and he knows the fact is that what the pro- 
 testing Lutherans said, found an echo in the hearts of the Protestants of 
 the country.” 
 
 While Englund thus is slurring the president as being in discord 
 with the Protestants of the country, he forgets that there is greater 
 danger from the blacklisting slavery referred to in this pamphlet than 
 from the open confession of the Roman Catholics as to that the church 
 should rule the state, an expression no doubt taken from the ideal 
 church as an institution of charity, ruling the nations in the millen- 
 nium. 
 
 President Roosevelt knows that if a church does not reign in love, 
 its reign will be short nowadays; and that it is the coarse-grained, 
 blacklisting enemy to the brotherhood of man we ought to go for, no 
 matter if he hides himself in a church who openly expresses its wish 
 to rule, or in a church where, behind the scenes and without manifest 
 proclamations, some men’s innate desire to rule creeps out wherever 
 there is a chance. 
 
 There may, furthermore, be times when even Englund would admit 
 that it is better to live in a community where we know who is responsi- 
 ble for the wrong than to have to, as in my case, hunt in the bushes 
 for the evil-doers, who claim that nothing can be proven and that they 
 are not responsible for what predecessors are doing during their 
 ephemeral reign. 
 
 Bishop Massillon. 
 
 When considering how, for instance, in 1900, when at a district’s 
 meeting I had been appointed to preach in the church at Pontiac, 
 R. I., this Englund did hide my satchel with the outline of my ser- 
 mon, and how, according to statements by the brethren, he afterwards 
 falsely alleged that I had been so drunk at that service that I had 
 taken on me three collars instead of one ; this, though more than once 
 Mrs. Holmgren and I were hindering ministers and their families 
 when before members they ridiculed this Englund as a man who more 
 than once has been reprimanded for his drunkenness. Yea, when I 
 consider this and similar things, there cannot but be a cause for re- 
 joicing that we have a president of the United States whose heart and 
 mind are bent upon to extend the hand of fellowship in the spirit of 
 
98 
 
 comradeship to every citizen in the land, no matter if some denom- 
 inations are unwarrantly criticising his recent placing of the Roman 
 Catholic Church on the same footing with the Protestants. And why 
 should he not? He knows that, for instance, one of their renowned 
 leaders, Bishop Massillon, in his admonition to the clergy, asserts : 
 
 There are sins of which we know not either their enormity or extent; but 
 we know, O God, that to become a stumbling-block to our brethren is to over- 
 turn for them the work of thy Son’s mission, and to destroy the fruit of his 
 labors, of his death and of all his mission. Such is the illusion of the pre- 
 text which men draw from the lightness of their slanders; the motives are 
 never innocent, the circumstances always criminal, the consequences irrep- 
 arable. That which at its birth was only a private and impudent pleas- 
 antry, a malicious conjecture, will become an eternal stain upon the char- 
 acter of your brother. Repair now, if you can, the injustice and the scan- 
 dal; restore to your brother the good name of which you have deprived him. 
 If whoever calls his brother a fool, be worthy, according to Jesus Christ, of 
 eternal fire, shall he who renders him the contempt and laughing-stock 
 escape the same punishment? Do not your brother’s talents, character, 
 etc., hurt you more than his faults? May your censures not proceed from 
 a secret jealousy? Would Saul have so often repeated with such pleasure, 
 that David was only the son of Jesse, had he not considered him as a rival, 
 more deserving than himself of the empire? Elsewhere you excuse every- 
 thing, but here every circumstance comes empoisoned from your mouth. The 
 more what we censure is light, the more is calumny to be dreaded; we must 
 embellish to attract attention. 
 
 Now, in view of that there are whole sections of Protestants en- 
 tirely devoid of such fatherly advice to the clergy as this bishop’s ap- 
 peals indicate, there is no wonder that a man like Roosevelt, who wants 
 to give every man a square deal, and finding good and bad in every 
 section of humanity, calls it bigotry to discriminate against any of 
 the Christian churches. 
 
 The Mission of the Press. 
 
 In the article, “The Public Library as a Reflector of the Prettiest 
 Star in the Star-Spangled Banner,” printed in the New Hampshire 
 Public Libraries’ Bulletin of December, 1905, I have also referred to 
 this, in the following words : 
 
 Criminology testifying, that in cold-blooded and deliberate murderers the 
 organ of benevolence is decidedly deficient, as in tribes remarkable for 
 Cruelty, the latitudinarian will furthermore emphasize, that in the press- 
 devoid dark ages most palatable opportunities were open to such brutes to 
 join the holy inquisition, where, under the shelter of divine law, they could 
 steel themselves with malignity, and own that man’s hatred is God’s, in 
 spite of the fact that when a man’s enemy is his judge, whatsoever his 
 cause is, we may foresee the sentence; and that a malicious person is as 
 
99 
 
 fit and able to make a right judgment of things, as a shaking hand to exact 
 measures; or a person that is drunk to study mathematics or to resolve 
 problems. And, according to eminent divines, when the decrees of Heaven 
 shall be examined by the partiality of perverse, malicious and discontented 
 persons, we must expect nothing else but the ugly issues of passion, dark- 
 ness and confusion. 
 
 However, in view of the communications that knit the nations closer to- 
 gether, and the art of printing that drags all the doings of men unrevoked 
 into the open day, the candid scholar will perceive that He, who has asserted 
 that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against his Church, is nowadays 
 making the dupable chairs of the apostles and church-leaders rather too 
 hot or uncomfortable to decidedly cruel-spirited, coarse-grained rogueships. 
 Such are therefore doggedly looking up more petty but congenial places or 
 premises where perhaps as demagogues or ringleaders, though compelled to 
 play hide and seek with justice, they may dictate comparatively unrestricted 
 and uncensured. 
 
 The renovated and disinfected old apostolic chairs are thus, one by one, 
 being filled by the originally designed brotherhood of clear headed men of 
 meek, loving and undesigning disposition and skilful in the words of right- 
 eousness. With their respective talents complementing each other, such 
 divinely ordained heads of Christendom are, under a prying censorship, 
 becoming humane and compassionate guardians of the sacerdotal office. 
 
 The press and the revival of letters having been a means of bringing 
 about such important radical changes within the so-called “high- 
 priest-ridden ’ ’ part of Christendom, why should not these very means 
 be commissioned to also accomplish such great improvements within 
 the so-called “anarchy-ridden” division? A great cause for rejoic- 
 ing it is also that we have had, and still are having, a president of 
 our country disposed to remind us that Christianity is neither a 
 creed nor a ceremonial, but a life vitally connected with a living 
 Christ, that the workers in the vineyard may wield the elements of 
 Christian achievement up to its maximum. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 And though you be done to the death, what then? 
 
 If you battled the best you could ; 
 
 If you played your part in the world of men, 
 
 Why, the critic will call it good. 
 
 Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, 
 
 And whether he’s slow or spry, 
 
 It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts, 
 
 But only how did you die? 
 
 Edmuxd V. Cooke. 
 
 The Rules of Ethics of Brown University. 
 
 Remarks may be made that the language of this book does not 
 tally with that of a stripped, bleeding victim on the Jericho road. St. 
 Paul does, however, assert : 
 
 We are pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed; 
 death working in us, but life in you. 
 
 Having in vain endeavored to get this concio ad clerum printed 
 in a plant connected with the Synod, and having received the reply 
 from a prominent pastor of the Synod that I ought not print this 
 book, as it would do me no good, I am bound, however, to also con- 
 sider the words of the apostle, that Christ died for all, that they which 
 live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their 
 sakes died and rose again. 
 
 Thus, notwithstanding that, for instance, from a pastor’s home 
 emanates the advice to not mind the claims of my creditors, or that 
 of bleeding victims on the Jericho road, I cannot be unscrupulous 
 enough to evade appealing in behalf of those who in several instances 
 during the past nine years have assisted with funds, enabling me 
 to provide my family with nurses, housemaids, doctors, etc., thereby 
 also keeping the ministerial blacklisted and bosses from making it 
 appear that my wife’s contingent death should have been caused, not 
 through their fiendish demeanor, but merely through neglect on my 
 part. It is against the moral law to forget those of my creditors, who, 
 during the past nine years or more, have unsuspectingly advanced 
 funds to assist in defraying moving expenses from place to place, 
 while, in order to avoid envious blacklisted ’ accusations that I have 
 troubles and difficulties, I lost heavily when selling, disposing and col- 
 
101 
 
 lecting on household goods, previous and after each removal. No con- 
 scientious person will blame me for making an appeal for those who 
 also have advanced funds for fuel, food, clothing, etc., not only on the 
 strength of statements made in the- past by conscientious brethren that 
 with my income it is impossible to avoid sinking in debt, but also 
 later on, on the strength of the decision carried by the Synod a 
 couple of years ago, that each pastor pay me $2; and that, as a 
 matter of course, a more complete redress will follow as soon as the 
 whole body of ministers begin to consider that the about $1,200 thus 
 promised in 1907 was not to assist me for being unfortunate enough to 
 have a sick wife, etc., but because the inhumanities of the bosses and 
 blacklisters was causing such sickness, etc. These, my noble creditors, 
 ought to be exempted from any losses for having sided with me in be- 
 lieving in the brotherhood of man, and especially of ministers. They 
 are not brought up under such a regime, that the weak should follow 
 4 ‘the example of Christ” and meekly submit to the oppressor, etc. 
 Their rules of ethics are, on the conrtrary, those of Doctor Way land of 
 Brown University: 
 
 Hence we gee the error of those who suppose that any company of men 
 who choose to organize a society for themselves, and who even may settle 
 in the wilderness for this purpose, have a right to organize it upon such 
 principles as they please. They have no right to form a society in viola- 
 tion of the social laws of man. God evidently intended that man should 
 live in society, and of this right he cannot be deprived unless he violates 
 some social law. His opinions and practices may differ from ours; but 
 if he commits no injury, his rights to the privileges of his social nature 
 remain intact. It is not enough for us to say, if he does not agree with 
 us, let him form some other society i;or himself. He has a right to this 
 society, and as long as he interferes with the rights of no one, he is as free 
 of this society as any other man. 
 
 Pleading the Rights of Creditors and Obscure Martyrs. 
 
 Furthermore, it would be an easy matter to compile a most convinc- 
 ing volume on the ministerial bosses’ and blacklisters’ relation to 
 their own congregations, while they claim that it is impossible for 
 them to recommend me to a place, on such empty excuse that I seem to 
 have troubles wherever I have been. It would be easy to prove 
 that such statements are merely voicing the envy, etc., occasioned by 
 my comparatively larger success, attendance at services, etc., making 
 them afraid that I would eclipse them if they would grant me the 
 same moral and financial support, the same chances and opportunities 
 they have, for instance, by preaching in some center of a large Swed- 
 ish population, where, on account of tradition, customs, etc., these 
 
102 
 
 bosses are harvesting a large revenue, in spite of their unpopularity 
 among the general people ; which unpopularity, when reaching a cer- 
 tain limit, compels them “to pray God for another call” to some 
 other large center, which call is soon forthcoming, as the bosses or 
 blacklisted occupying such places are often too glad for an oppor- 
 tunity to exchange and to keep matters rotating. 
 
 It would not be hard to understand that if such things be permit- 
 ted to go on uninterruptedly, there soon would be only one species of 
 natural disposition fit for the ministry, i. e., “the foxy species;” an 
 expression taken right from the people and which also renders an 
 inkling of why my milkman recently told me that he never doubted 
 that I am in the right. I have told this honest farmer that in June 
 I will no doubt be able to bring this contest to a culmination point, 
 and that I will soon be at liberty to defray all my daily expenses, 
 but that it would not be fair, neither to him nor the other creditors, 
 to not keep on and finish up with a complete final appeal, in behalf of 
 the creditors from previous years. In this, he fully agreed with me, 
 and expressed his preference in furnishing my home with milk on 
 credit so as to assist and relieve me as much as possible in my Her- 
 culean labors to keep things going, while I have to serve as my own 
 “lawyer,” and friend of “the martyrs at the stake,” i. e., 
 
 For the cause that lacks assistance, 
 
 For the wrong that needs resistance. 
 
 Though my creditors know that he who was able at first to violate 
 right has commonly the power to violate it again, and to resist with 
 effect the claims of the injured party, still they are unable to under- 
 stand how a whole body of teachers in morals and religion can get 
 away from the fact that, for instance in 1906, when the bosses de- 
 prived me of all allowance from the Conference treasury, though to 
 unbiased minds my record in Concord was excellent, Rev. Peterson 
 of Proctor, Vt., at hearing of such decision, is reported to have ex- 
 claimed, ‘ ‘ What a shameful act ! ’ ’ — he having been absent when such 
 decision was pushed through at one of the sessions of the Conference, 
 this same pastor having also, as my successor in New Sweden, Me., 
 1902, testified that I had done a good work also at that place. 
 
 It is also hard to understand how a whole body of ministers are 
 able to evade such facts related in my circular, “A Battle for Life,” 
 that, not only with reference to my two first years as ordained minister, 
 when in 1902 I left my charge at Antrim, Pa., the president of the 
 New York Conference, Nelsenius, awarded me a most laudatory let- 
 ter of commendation to the Minnesota Conference; but when in 1S99 
 
103 
 
 I returned to the former Conference, I was accompanied by the fol- 
 lowing tribute : 
 
 Vasa, Minn., September 29, 1899. 
 
 To the Hon. President of the New York Conference, Rev. L. P. Ahlquist , 
 Portland, Conn.: 
 
 Grace and Peace! 
 
 Pastor C. J. A. Holmgren, who during the past years has been in charge 
 of the pastorate Walnut Grove, Lime Lake, Bethania, Lund and Herlunda, 
 and now on the strength of a call from the Swed. Ev. Luth. congregation 
 at Newport, R. I., moves to the New York Conference, is awarded the 
 testimony, that he has been trustworthy in his dealings, faithful in his 
 calling, and untiring in his labors on the extensive field which has been 
 entrusted to him, wherefore he comes most highly recommended. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 J. Fremling, 
 
 The President of the Minnesota Conference. 
 
 1 i Honey for the Bitterest Cup. ’ ’ 
 
 My creditors know full well that notwithstanding the slurs that are 
 thrown at me for supposed non-support of my family, it can be 
 evinced that up to this very moment I have worked harder than the 
 majority of men, but that, though in love for humanity years ago I 
 sacrificed a most lucrative calling and began serving mankind in a 
 work, concerning which the grand old man Gladstone asserts that his 
 only hope for the w T orld is bringing the human mind in contact 
 with divine revelation, nevertheless, through the envy and malice of 
 ‘ ‘teachers in morals and religion,” I am cleaned out worse than if a 
 fire or earthquake had been experienced, my case being as different 
 as chalk from cheese, when compared to what was recently related in 
 the papers concerning a fire at Hoffman, Minn., that one of our Au- 
 gustana. pastors, Rev. Vallquist, lost two pianos, two organs, $240 in 
 cash, a library worth $3,000. 
 
 The thing that has somewhat troubled my mind, however, is that, 
 though we live in a land of plenty, people are so shy of a man with 
 a grievance, unless it results from an earthquake or fire, that cruel 
 blacklisted are boasting that my case is hopeless, the Synod’s official 
 organ being bolted to my expostulations, while the anathemas of the 
 oppressors have free access to its “ sacred” columns. But then, the 
 presence of my creditors and the groans from the many victims on 
 this old historic Jericho road makes me stick to the truth : 
 
104 
 
 Then take this honey for the bitterest cup; 
 
 There is no failure, save in giving up. 
 
 No real fall, so long as one still tries, 
 
 For seeming set-backs make the strong man wise, 
 
 There’s no defeat in truth save from within; 
 
 Unless you’re beaten there, you’re bound to win. 
 
 Yes, I am bound to win, not only in behalf of my creditors, but also 
 in behalf of many a bleeding victim on the Jericho road. Though, 
 of course, the credit for it be denied me, still there are unmistakable 
 signs as to that my labors, both through articles in the press and, later 
 on, through private circulars, are bearing fruit. Nay, I should not 
 wonder if, by this time, Fogelstrom’s condition is improved, and 
 that changes are made in the leadership of Conferences, etc. Yea, 
 strong articles are now visible to promote order in the existing chaos. 
 Especially one of the articles just out in our denominational press 
 causes me great rejoicing. It reads as follows: 
 
 The well-liked brother, Rev. F. E. Sard, of Sioux Falls, S. D., is to move 
 from this, the S. E. Dakota District. We are dissatisfied and grieved over 
 it, as Pastor Sard is so well needed in our district. We all have found 
 him to be a true and upright friend and brother, and a zealous, faithful 
 and persistent worker, who has done a good work, and this in spite of lots 
 of enmity, as it seems, mostly on account of some existing misunderstand- 
 ing, but, deplorably also perhaps not so little, owing to spite and malice. 
 It is, however, rejoicing that Rev. Sard has declared himself willing to 
 leave the vengeance to Him that judgeth righteously, as, when it matters 
 personal interests, it certainly is better to suffer silently. But we ask, 
 filled with grief and concern: How long are we to find men willing to 
 go out as laborers in the harvest, when, through the malice or ignorance 
 of enemies, such laborers are again and again placed in an exceedingly dis- 
 advantageous position? Is it advisable to permit such to exist untram- 
 meled? The writer asks, because several times he has seen the damaging 
 results from such things. At any rate, we speak highly of the faithful 
 work performed by our esteemed Pastor Sard. Our sincere wish is that 
 God’s blessings may follow him in the charge to which he is now moving. 
 
 Thank you, Brother Bring, for this article. That sounds different 
 to the panegyric printed in our denominational paper some years ago, 
 when Rev. J. Franzen, a former Sioux Falls pastor, had died, the 
 panegyric reading, “that he moved so often because he had such a 
 fidgety mind, ” when in fact, in one of the places he served, we know 
 that he had to ride in a buggy about 2,000 miles a year, while he 
 suffered excruciating pains on account of an ailment, rendering such 
 traveling almost impossible. And as, while in Sioux Falls, he had to 
 travel quite extensively even there, it would be proper to conclude 
 to the real reasons for his removal from South Dakota also. 
 
105 
 
 Mrs. Frances Willard’s Assertion. 
 
 As to the statement that Rev. Sard has declared himself willing to 
 leave “the vengeance to God,” I do not believe that neither he nor 
 any other rightminded bleeding victim on the Jericho road has any 
 feelings of vengeance in the sense this word is generally used. Nay, 
 rather let us pray and labor that God may speed the day when pa- 
 triotic citizens will see the urgent need of a sober-mindedness producing 
 literary tribunal, so that, through such an independent press, the 
 workers, the helpers, be granted the protection of society to keep the 
 coarse-grained and ill-natured under the surveillance of the printing 
 press, so that, when God’s spirit forsakes them, their evil inclinations 
 be cowed by the argus-eyes of the public. As the success of mankind 
 depends upon knowledge, freedom and goodness, the value of such 
 protection to the helpers cannot be overestimated. 
 
 If, for instance, the coarse-grained, the blacklisters, of the Au- 
 gustana Synod, had known that a man already privately, as Jesus, 
 condemned “to death” as a criminal should assume command of the 
 printing press, to call the place which they had arranged and man- 
 aged a “den of robbers,” they would not have dared to go so far as 
 they actually have. Therefore, it seems to me that there is no other 
 means to cow the brute in man than the scare for the printers’ ink, 
 as a whip of Christ. 
 
 For my own part, while in behalf of my creditors and of the 
 stripped sufferers on the Jericho road, my labors are not in vain, I 
 know that this book “will do me personally no good,” especially as 
 I have before me the fact that the cleansing of the temple by Jesus 
 did not “do him personally any good,” his enemies only becoming 
 more confirmed in their determination to get rid of a man whom they 
 both hated and feared. 
 
 Still, I cannot get away from the influence and truth of the asser- 
 tion made by one of America’s noblest women, Mrs. Frances Willard: 
 
 The sooner we learn that this is true (that men are brethren, whether 
 they will or not), the sooner we clasp hands in concerted purpose and en- 
 deavor to enact brotherhood on earth, the more shall we be made in the 
 image of man, rather than to show forth the lineaments of serpents and 
 of beasts; for the hiss of the serpent and the teeth of the hyena are not 
 more savage, relentless and cruel than those laws and customs by which 
 the greater number are steadily ground under the heel of the lesser, and 
 a human being becomes the cheapest thing on earth, the least desired, and 
 the worst cared for. 
 
106 
 
 The Samaritan. 
 
 As to this work of clasping hands in concerted efforts to enact 
 brotherhood on earth, I proffer up thanks to God for the cheer ex- 
 tended from Concord friends of different churches and organizations, 
 who, especially two years ago, manifested a great activity to ‘‘tem- 
 porarily’’ assist, in compliance with the admonition in Leviticus 
 19 : 34 : 
 
 The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be- unto you as the home- 
 born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. 
 
 And as to the saloon or brewery, the good Samaritan mentioned pre- 
 viously, when expressing my sincere gratitude to them, I beg leave 
 to use the following words from “The Prince of Peace”: 
 
 Finally came a Samaritan. You and I know how they looked upon the 
 Jews, and how the Jews regarded them. Nevertheless, this Samaritan 
 felt his heart go out in pity for the stranger and did for him everything 
 possible, binding up his wounds, lifting him to his own animal to ride, 
 while he himself walked beside him to a hotel. Nor did his kindness 
 stop there. When obliged to leave the stranger he put him in the care of 
 the host, paid his bill in advance, and begged that he might receive all 
 attention, promising to pay whatever it cost. 
 
 “Which,” said Jesus to the questioner, “was neighbor to that man?” 
 Of course you know how he was answered. And the final reply of Jesus 
 is one worthy of thought, not only by the man to whom it was spoken, 
 but by all who would be learners of Jesus. “Go and do likewise!” 
 
 I suppose it was really very hard for the Jewish doctor of the law to admit 
 that a Samaritan, whom he despised, was, in the sense which the law 
 meant, his neighbor, and as such was to be treated as well as he would 
 treat himself under like circumstances. Do you notice that he did not 
 use the hated word “Samaritan” in answering Jesus? “He that showed 
 mercy on him” is the somewhat awkward way in which he manages to 
 
 avoid the word, while admitting the fact. 
 
 % 
 
 As every man is so created as instinctively to commit to the com- 
 munity of his fellowmen the protection of his rights and the redress 
 of his wrongs ; and his fellowmen, on the other hand, instinctively as- 
 sume this authority, nay, feel guilty if they do not exert it; and as 
 yielding to injustice forms a precedent for wrong which may work 
 the most extensive mischief to those who shall come after us, it is mani- 
 fest that I consider every citizen under moral obligation to con- 
 tribute his proportion even to these my efforts to render certain of 
 our fellow-citizens wiser and better. These truths are not only stated 
 in the ethics of the president of Brown University, but written in 
 our conscience as human beings. There can be no doubt that by as- 
 sisting me in this, Doctor Wayland’s assertion will be fulfilled: 
 
107 
 
 That from every such successful effort in rendering assistance, every citizen 
 receives material benefit, both in person and estate; and that one, therefore, 
 ought to be willing to assist others in doing that from which he himself derives 
 important advantage. 
 
 Furthermore, as to my conduct, this president also rightly claims 
 that yielding to injustice forms a precedent for wrong, which may 
 work the most extensive mischief to those who shall come after us. 
 It is manifest, therefore, that passive obedience cannot be the rule of 
 civil conduct. 
 
 In this book, ‘‘Moral Science,” we also read: 
 
 The citizen is under obligation as a constituent member of society. 
 Hence he is bound: 
 
 1. To use all necessary exertion to secure to every individual, from the 
 highest and most powerful to the lowest and most defenseless, the full 
 benefit of perfect protection in the enjoyment of his rights. 
 
 2. To use all necessary exertion to procure for every individual just 
 and adequate redress for wrong. 
 
 He who stands by and sees a mob tear down a house is a partaker of 
 the guilt. And if society knowingly neglects to protect the individual 
 in the enjoyment of his rights, every member of that society is in equity 
 
 bound, in his proportion, to make good that loss. Every man has been 
 
 created a constituent member of society, every man has a right to it; and 
 as long as he violates no rights he is entitled to all the privileges of the 
 social state. He may be a foreigner, alone and friendless, yet society 
 covers all his rights as a man under the shield of her protection. . . 
 Man is in need of this protection all his life. This protection which 
 others afford him he is under obligations to unite in affording others. 
 
 This relation of the individual to society is the foundation of some 
 
 of the most interesting affections in our nature. As society is thus the 
 
 source of innumerable blessings, we look up to it with gratitude, venera- 
 tion and love. It is to us a sort of parent, to whom we owe a vast debt 
 of filial obedience. Thus is formed the affection of patriotism, or love 
 of country, one of the most ennobling virtues that can adorn our charac- 
 ter. It is thus that we joyfully suffer the loss of all things, even life it- 
 self, for our native land; and the sentiment has for twenty centuries 
 thrilled the hearts of thousands, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. 
 This particular form of love of society gives us victory over the love of 
 self, and raises us to the dignity not only of intelligent, but of social 
 and moral beings. 
 
 Leviathan, Job 40 and 41. 
 
 In this connection, we may also finally remind you of the intro- 
 duction of my large circular, ‘‘A Battle for Life,” October 31, 1906, 
 which introduction w r as called “The Intimations of Providence,” and 
 reads as follows : 
 
108 
 
 Ascension Day, 1902, while on my journey from. New Sweden, Me., to 
 Concord, N. H., Mrs. Holmgren, ever like Joseph, “the dreamer,” endowed 
 with, a most acute faculty of discernment as to the influences from on 
 high, dreamt that as from the city-side she opened the door to the wait- 
 ing-room of the railroad station at Concord (where she never had been 
 before) she saw the king of all the beasts, a stony-hearted crocodile, 
 the Leviathan of Job 41, with his jaws wide open. 
 
 “Oh, dear, look, papa! He’ll swallow us!” she exclaims, while embracing 
 her children. From behind, and with an assuring “No danger!” I grabbed 
 the beast by one of its jaws, while Mrs. Holmgren cries: “Take care! 
 He bites you!” (Who can open the doors of his face? Round about his 
 teeth is terror. Job 40: 14.) But with a firm hold on th e wtlitr . with ^g- 
 ■numeraMe toQ-feh -^l i^ t eft iwg, and with a strong jerk, I rent his jaws asunder. 
 At the crashing sound, and with folded hands, Mrs. Holmgren exclaims, with 
 uplifted eyes, “Thanks, good God !” 
 
 In Isaiah 27, which chapter treats of the enemies of the church, is 
 prophesied that “Leviathan, the swift serpent, and Leviathan, the crooked 
 serpent, and the dragon in the sea shall be punished and slain.” Thus, 
 though I smiled at first at my wife’s dream, I nevertheless began to think 
 that perchance here in Concord the enemies of the church will get a neck 
 within reach, so that the swift as well as the crooked followers of the 
 dragon may really be expedited. 
 
 Equally as wondrous were the ways of providence, that I was to hold 
 my entrance in the Concord parish on the 6th Sunday after Easter, when 
 from the altar I had to first read St. John 16:23-33: 
 
 “They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the hour cometh that 
 whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God.” 
 
 This text alluded to what I just had experienced at New Sweden, Me. 
 Next in order, the church-book required me to preach on St. Luke 12 : 
 4-12, auguring the future in store, as, following close upon the admoni- 
 tion to beware of the leaven of Pharisees, in this text Christ admonishes: 
 
 “Be not afraid of them which kill the body, and after that have no 
 more that they can do,” and in the last verse: 
 
 “When they bring you before the synagogue, and the rulers and the au- 
 thorities, be not anxious how or what ye shall say, for the Holy Spirit 
 shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say.” Christ evidently 
 in these words referring to the circumstance that his disciples, as consci- 
 entious and benevolent beings, would be best served by a searching, judi- 
 cious inquiry. 
 
 With Leviathan in the waiting-room of the railroad station, and with 
 the prescribed texts for my inaugural sermon, the premonitions of provi- 
 dence were intelligible enough as to the future in store here in Concord, 
 where, succeeding the period of the multitude’s flower-strewing at my 
 feet, their attention should be drawn to my exposed and harborless con- 
 dition to the merely for a short while transquilized passions, which, after 
 the first days of exultation, and under the clamors or incentives of earthly 
 interests, vain glory and avarice, would again become agitated and ablaze. 
 
 So many heads, so many minds, may of course for a while become con- 
 cordant under the discretion of the most predominant, yet, in the pitch and 
 
109 
 
 toss and lottery of life, other interests will soon run riot and burst into 
 flames, and (Job 40: 14, 20), “Round about the teeth of Leviathan terror 
 begins to be visible, and out of his nostrils a smoke goeth, as of a 
 seething pot.” 
 
 For years having given up my life-blood, and being made to despair 
 under the blacklisters ’ captious fault-finding, which also brought the 
 Saviour on the Cross; and as to the threats made against my life, I 
 know that when right is to prevail and win, which it always will in 
 the long run, it is met by the powers of oppression and tyranny ; and 
 that without sacrifices and sufferings the true brotherhood of man, 
 and even his rights to work for his living, cannot be established. 
 
 To make the coarse-grained natures shudder at their hardness of 
 heart it seems to be necessary that they should exceed the limit of 
 common decency, or, to use the expression of the, on that account much 
 criticised Rev. Forslund, who said, while laboring in the New York 
 Conference, that certain pastors “ ought to learn in hell the care of 
 souls. ’ ’ 
 
 At any rate, what sane man would not rather be a sheep torn by 
 the wolf than the wolf tearing it? Abel, the lamb, in his death throes, 
 is happier than Cain, the wolf, in his hellish blood-sucking. And, 
 siding with Rev. Fogelstrom, it is better to be wronged than to commit 
 the wrong ; or, as the Bible puts it : 
 
 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord : whether we die, we die unto the 
 Lord ; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. 
 
 At the recent Methodist Episcopal Conference here in Concord, it 
 was emphasized the simple justice of making provision for those 
 clergymen who are no longer fitted for active pastoral service. The 
 man who has retired because of age has his annuity, but the younger 
 man, who has not reached the age of retirement, should be given some 
 protection in case misfortune befalls him. This aid should not take 
 the form of charity, said the speaker, Dr. J. B. Hingeley. Rather 
 it should be regarded as no more than payment for service. 
 
 He illustrated this point by the case of three young men, graduat- 
 ing from college at the same time, equal in ability and equipment. 
 One, noting the rich rewards of success in mercantile pursuits, makes 
 choice of a business career. The second, attracted by the evidences 
 of success in professional walks of life, decides to prepare himself 
 for one of the professions. The third, just as ambitious as his fel- 
 lows, feels himself called upon to embark in the ministry and becomes 
 a clergyman. 
 
110 
 
 If that young man chooses to ally himself with the Methodist Church, it 
 is only just to give him some assurance of a comfortable old age. The bislfop 
 tells him in the beginning that the church has little to offer, but that it will 
 provide him with comfortable living as long as he lives. The church makes 
 that promise to the young man as a small measure of return for the undoubted 
 sacrifice he has made. That promise must be kept. Its redemption is no 
 more than honor requires. 
 
 As the standard of ethics with the blacklisted of the Augustana 
 Synod does not come up to that of these Methodists, and as the gov- 
 ernment of the Synod does not reflect the majority of the people, 
 under the proposition that all men are created equal ; and thus, its gov- 
 ernment being not of the people, by the people and for the people; 
 and as therefore there is no guarantee afforded me that the tricks of 
 our church politicians and ring-leaders will not prevail, as it seemed to 
 have, even in the case of Fogelstrom, this Sanhedrim of officials, etc., 
 being looked upon as a Holy of Holies, while a martyr, a witch, re- 
 mains a witch, and, as in former centuries, the majority has to go 
 hungry and barefoot that one king or prince might be arrayed in 
 splendor — for such and similar reasons, not to mention that I run 
 the risk of being shut up in some asylum, I consider it safest not to 
 attend the Conference, but, as a mother lovingly provides for her 
 children, though she may be on tomorrow to leave them forever, in 
 behalf of my creditors, the destitute on the Jericho road, of mankind 
 present and to come, by the aid of tfie printing press I will continue 
 to appeal to the heart of each and every pastor of the Synod. 
 
 Believing with Horace Greeley that all true greatness is ripened and 
 tempered and proved in lifelong struggle against vicious beliefs, tra- 
 ditions, practices, institutions, and that not to have been a reformer 
 is not to have truly lived, I patiently resign to the decision of the 
 whole body of ministers and not to a meeting of a conference, etc., 
 where the puppet popes of an advisory board seem to have absolute 
 sway, etc. 
 
 And while the blacklisted and their tools forget that God hates 
 inhumanity, and that God’s heart repents Him for those who seem to 
 be utterly trampled under the foot and denied the right to live, I am 
 personally always willing to be little, and, being honored with the title 
 “T. F.,” I cannot but close this volume with a verse from “The Fool’s 
 Prayer”: 
 
 Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; 
 
 Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool 
 That did his will; but Thou, O Lord, 
 
 Be merciful to me, a fool! 
 
SUPPLEMENT 
 
 TO 
 
 THE ROAD TO JERICHO. 
 
 Oratory may sway multitudes and 
 kings may rule — but all these are 
 trifling and pitifully small beside 
 the province of the open page. 
 
 Barlow. 
 
 Without the means to attend the Synod, convening at Red Wing, 
 Minn., June 10, nothing else remains but abiding with the printed page, 
 for which purpose I am supplied with funds. 
 
 If such my printed appeals does not suffice against the power of the 
 blacklisters, nothing else would avail, as hereby everything can be impar- 
 tially considered, free from the influence of applause or condemnation of 
 an excited audience swayed by preconceived personal conviction. 
 
 As every pastor is thus furnished with a powerful impetus to bear upon 
 the representatives convening at Red Wing, I shall understand that if the 
 award and redress, I am entitled to, be denied me, it must be the unani- 
 mous wish of the ministry as a whole to see me in bankruptcy and refused 
 a human and Christian treatment. 
 
 For the cause of Christ and in behalf of my creditors, I trust that the 
 brethren are however taking to heart the words of Christ, “ Blessed are 
 the peacemakers ; for they shall be called the sons of God.” 
 
 Compassed About with a Cloud of Spectators. 
 
 In Augustana , the official organ of the Synod, Rev. J. Torell, of Swede- 
 burg, Neb., once related : 
 
 In my native home it was reported that one night two farmers killed a poor 
 tenant 's wife and gave her blood to one of their wives as a remedy and health 
 restorative. 
 
 In the dark of the night they hunted up the innocent victim of their follies 
 while she, unaware of any evil, reposed in bed with her husband and suckling. 
 
 They wrenched the child from her breast and coaxed and impelled the tenant 
 to hold the light while they were cutting up and killing his wife, and secured 
 her heart blood to constitute a drink for her former mistress. 
 
 Every week, as a small boy, I often walked by this shanty, and at every time 
 I passed I was incensed against these murderers and this husband, who could be 
 coaxed and frightened so as to hold the light, while the murderers performed 
 their atrocious deed. 
 
 A few years later I became a private tutor in the family of that same farmer, 
 and I then learned that his wife had not derived any benefit from having drunk 
 her murdered ex-servant's heart blood. 
 
 Do not these extracts from that Augustana article verify the truth, that 
 the blood of the martyrs never made fat their slayers; and also that 
 though it has been a common occurrence both in Sweden and other 
 
2 
 
 countries, that when a defenceless person is punched upon and abused? 
 a ring of onlookers is formed, of whom even some are shouting : “ Give 
 it to him ! ” — still, such, either silent or boisterous, looking on, is unworthy 
 of teachers in morals and religion ? 
 
 This latter is here referred to as to many it would appear as if a ring 
 had been formed around me and my blacklisted— a ring of both silent 
 and boisterous spectators. 
 
 So, for instance, not only in Augustana of May 20, Rev. C. W. Andeer, 
 who some years ago told me to go to work in some mill, states that cer- 
 tain officials of the New York Conference are splendid fellow brethren; 
 but following upon the issue of my book, “ The Road to Jericho,” and its 
 statements as to the cause of my debts, etc., the chief editor of Augustana , 
 Dr. L. G. Abrahamson, calls the public’s attention to the circumstance that 
 Rev. C. J. Scheleen, of Manhattan, Kan., has a salary of only $400 a year, 
 but no parsonage ; nevertheless, in the past, he has adopted tw T o children, 
 besides caring for and bringing up eleven other destitute children, etc. 
 
 But would it not been proper if Doctor Abrahamson also had referred 
 to the fact that this pastor, who now is 68 years old, lives where it is com- 
 paratively easy to get along, besides enjoying the moral support of the 
 ministry? Furthermore, there are quite a few of our pastors who have 
 adopted orphan girls, thereby saving them the expenses of a hired girl, 
 nurse, etc. More than that, many pastors are married to daughters of 
 wealthy farmers, etc., not to mention numerous other items, rendering it 
 possible and easy for them to get along even without any salary what- 
 ever. 
 
 As for many years, Doctor Abrahamson’s income must have averaged, 
 I should judge, $3,000 a year, it is impossible to conceive that a man 
 endowed with such large benevolence as he certainly is, even if his con- 
 scientiousness were not equally as large, when it matters natural endow- 
 ments, could remain passive at seeing a brother laboring on such small 
 salary, if he did not know there were certain circumstances that ren- 
 dered it unnecessary for him to assist. I know how I myself and other 
 brethren would feel under similar circumstances. 
 
 So, for instance, in 1902, soon after my arrival at Concord, Rev. J. W. 
 Eckman, then at Lowell, Mass., visited my home and stated : 
 
 Brother Holmgren, you have too large a family to support on such a small 
 place as Concord. As I am going to leave Lowell I will assist you to become 
 acting pastor during the vacancy, thus affording you a splendid opportunity to 
 become permanent pastor of that parish. 
 
 Rev. Eckman did not know at that time that Doctor Beck had prom- 
 ised this parish to Rev. Aslev ; and thus, after the departure of Rev. 
 Eckman, I only got the privilege of preaching at that place the two 
 Doomsday Sundays of the church year, the last Sunday after Trinitatis and 
 
3 
 
 the second Sunday in Advent, as referred to in my book, “ The Road to 
 Jericho.” 
 
 Withal, I know how I would feel and act if I were in Doctor Abraham- 
 son’s position, and knew a brother to be in distress. So, for instance, in 
 1895, while I was pastor in Antrim, Pa., and Rev. C. J. Youngberg at the 
 sister parish in Arnot, the latter wrote to me that, owing to the many 
 removals, he could not sustain himself in Arnot if he would not get Antrim 
 as an annex. 
 
 Though the Antrim congregation had just surprised me with a gift of 
 over $100, and had offered me the privilege of visiting Sweden and Europe 
 to recuperate from the overwork I had taken upon me, Rev. Youngberg’s 
 letter of distress decided the question, and, instead of accepting the offer 
 made by the good Antrim people, in the spring of 1895, I accepted the 
 call to Minnesota where, owing to the constant traveling after my horses, 
 I had a splendid opportunity to recuperate. 
 
 Furthermore, that Doctor Abrahamson’s statement, that Rev. Scheleen 
 is getting along on merely $400 a year, cannot be applied to the majority 
 of our pastors, is evident from, for instance, following letter extracts : 
 
 (See page 23 in “The Road to Jericho”) 
 
 Brother Holmgren, Peace ! 
 
 Marquette, Mich., February 23, 1904. 
 
 The Ishpeming District has through me asked the mission board of the Illinois 
 Conference to renew the call for you to Scandia at a salary of $1,000. As I un- 
 derstand, the board has offered you less than $800 ($700), which is very wrong. 
 Here it is not so cheap to live as the fathers think. It costs a good deal more 
 than in Illinois #nd the central states. I have had $800 and parsonage here in 
 Marquette, but it is the extra income or fees that have made it possible for me 
 to maintain and not sink in debts. 
 
 Fraternally, 
 
 F. A. LINDER. 
 
 (Now President of the Illinois Conference.) 
 
 Brother Holmgren, Concord, N. H. 
 The Peace of God ! 
 
 Ashtabula, O., Sept. 14, 1903. 
 
 And then, your salary ! Oh ! How small it is; only $50 a month ! What are 
 these among so many mouths as your family counts ! There cannot but be a 
 monthly balance. We, too, have had many hardships. This year, my wife has 
 been sick for seven weeks, (while mine was in bed for eight months and another 
 time nearly one year, etc.,) but our members of the congregation have been so 
 kind to us that they have performed all the housework, nursed my wife, sup- 
 plied us with food during all this time. Nevertheless, our salary is barely suffi- 
 cient, though I have $800 a year, parsonage and a great deal of extra income or 
 fees ; and we, my wife and I, think that we live very economical. . . . 
 
 F. SWENSON. 
 
 The Interdict Sanctioned. 
 
 May 8, 1909, following letter was received from the new president of 
 the New York Conference: 
 
4 
 
 Extracts from the minutes of the annual meeting of the New York Confer- 
 ence, Brooklyn, N. Y., April 21-27, 1909: 
 
 Upon the recommendation of the committee on this matter, it was carried that 
 the suspension of Rev. C. J. A. Holmgren from the holy ministry is confirmed 
 and shall continue in force until he has proven himself so penitent, and, besides, 
 regained such stipulations than can entitle him to come in possession of it again. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., and Naugatuck, Conn. 
 
 F. JACOBSON, E. A. ZETTERSTRAND, 
 
 Pres. Seer. 
 
 First of all, it is ominous enough that the ring-leaders have reelected 
 the same officials of the conference, with the sole exception of the presi- 
 dent, Doctor Nelsenius, who, notwithstanding his weakness in not daring 
 to stand up for the truth, nevertheless furnished me with weapons to pro- 
 tect myself, for which the God of charity will give him credit, as long as 
 it is true, that love covereth a multitude of sins. That Nelsenius is no 
 longer the president of the Conference may thus be caused by the fact 
 that he has shown me certain tokens of sympathy and charity. 
 
 That my suspension is now openly confirmed at the Conference meet- 
 ing can only dupe the uninitiated public, as, when it matters myself and 
 family, we know that, years before the stake was publicly erected, I have 
 been deprived of the moral and financial backing needed to fill my calling, 
 and that only when in behalf of my creditors, etc., I was forced to inform 
 the whole brotherhood that it was impossible for me to let the blacklist- 
 ing puppet-popes smother me on the back-stairs, my “suspension ” was 
 finally made public, i. e., at the front-door. 
 
 In the fall, 1907, the president of the Boston District of the New York 
 Conference published the following appeal in Augustan a : 
 
 Because of long-continued sickness in his family, misconceptions in his work, 
 and without a place or charge for more than one year, Rev. C. J. A. Holmgren 
 has been placed in very sorely pressed circumstances, the ministry of the 
 Augustana Synod, at its convention at New Britain, Conn., June, 1907, made 
 arrangements for a temporary relief to Pastor Holmgren. 
 
 The Ministry passed a resolution that each pastor contribute at the rate of 82 
 each to succor the sorely afflicted brother and his family. Thus, every pastor is 
 requested to contribute the sum of 82 during this synodical year. 
 
 As the cold season is at hand, which means new vexations to the poor, and as 
 Pastor Holmgren is in need of shelter, food and raiment, we ask all the brethren 
 of the Augustana Synod to readily assist in keeping the wolf from the family’s 
 door. To facilitate the work, we ask every district to collect within their 
 respective boundaries. The treasurers of each district may thereupon turn the 
 money over to J. A. Bernhard, 328 Ferry St. , Everett, Mass. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 J. A. BERNHARD. 
 
 Thrown in the cave of Despair at seeing this “degrading” publication, 
 I at once wrote to the editor of Augustana at that time, Dr. S. P. A. 
 Lindahl, who in his reply admitted that this was not the right way to 
 bring me the needed succor. 
 
 As it is rightly claimed, that the reputation which a man has established 
 
5 
 
 that he is capable and desirous of doing well, is frequently of more value 
 than money; and that it may be destroyed by false and malicious slander, 
 and as it becomes the community to come to his aid, and render such 
 award as may establish him in his true standing and render it for the 
 interest of the slanderer to leave the honor of his neighbor untarnished, 
 there is no wonder that at reading the above article in Augustana my 
 wife wept bitterly, comprehending how such public suppression of the 
 real facts would debar me from all chances of securing calls to congrega- 
 tions and future promotion, people being afraid to extend a call to a man, 
 depicted as a poor, unfortunate object of charity, pity, etc. 
 
 In those days, I had implored Doctor Norelius to assist me to the 
 vacant chair of professorship in Christianity at our College at Rock Island, 
 111., and Doctor Nelsenius had written to me that it would be we\\ if for 
 instance Reverend Bernhard, then at Quincy, Mass., would recommend 
 me to Sheffield and Ludlow, Pa., from which places he had received a 
 call ; the pastor at Everett was however, commended to those parishes. 
 Rev. John Johnson had told me that it is the duty of the brethren to get 
 me a call to a large congregation, where I can support my family. 
 
 That there is a human and Christian way in which to bring me succor 
 is indicated by the fact that, in 1901, the Providence district decided to 
 ask the New York Conference to grant me $150 to cover part of the 
 moving expenses up to that date. Evidently, because they were afraid 
 that slurs would be thrown at those who had induced me to go to New- 
 port, I was told that in the opinion of the brethren it would be unwise of 
 me to push the matter before the Conference. 
 
 In my sincere love for the brethren, I did not push it, at the same time 
 believing the brethren to be in possession of the same loving heart, and 
 that they would allow me to come to a charge at least as good as the one 
 I had in Minnesota. Nay, there are plenty positions in the Synod, that 
 would afford me a chance to even pay my present debts without making 
 me an object of disgracing charity, but as award for faithful services. 
 
 But instead of thus establishing me in my true standing, the black- 
 listers seem to be afraid that such tactics would not only leave my 
 honor untarnished, but would give the public a hint that it is their cruel- 
 ties that have caused the breakdown of my wife and the distress and mis- 
 fortunes of myself and family. 
 
 In my love to my persecutors, who wanted to appear pure as lilies, I 
 patiently resigned to their underhand schemes, as long as I saw that they 
 were beginning to really look after the interests of my creditors. These 
 artful dodges, however, must have aroused the suspicion of more than 
 half of the ministers, as the money did not flow in as expected, and then, 
 when in the summer of 1908, Reverend Bernhard wrote to one of my 
 creditors, that as I had received a place in Gardner, no more money 
 
would be forthcoming, then, when even my creditors’ interests were 
 alarmingly involved, there was nothing else left for me than to push my 
 case before the whole body of the ministers. And then it was that the 
 blacklisters made their countrecoup , suspending me at the front-door. 
 
 Diverting the Attention from the Question. 
 
 When publishing that this unchristian and inhuman “ suspension ” 
 remains in force until I become penitent, etc., the puppet-popes and their 
 committees are employing the same tactics to mislead the public as, for 
 instance, Svea’s correspondent made use of when I had lovingly implored 
 the Concord leaders to take up the names of the respective members of 
 the Concord congregation to investigate if there had been any just cause 
 for publicly branding me as a liar when I stated that, during my ministry, 
 the membership of the parish had almost doubled. 
 
 So, by publicly announcing that I must become penitent, the black- 
 listers have branded me as a malefactor, deserving to be unfrocked and 
 deprived of my calling and belongings ; such procedure certainly recalling 
 to our minds the statement made by Lord Beaconsfield of England : 
 
 The forensic habit of diverting attention from the question to the man who 
 propounds it seems now to be a monopoly of the clergy. 
 
 October 22, 1906, one of the friendly brethren, Rev. John Johnson, 
 wrote to me : 
 
 Every one says that you are a good preacher, but that your moods and tem- 
 perament are below par. You have a lovely wife and excellent children. It 
 grieves me that your condition is such that you cannot care for them better. 
 
 Such deriding of my character recalls to my mind how, in Shakespeare’s 
 play, “ King Lear,” the king of Britain is an easy victim of his designing 
 daughters, and is influenced by them to drive Cordelia, his third daughter, 
 from his palace. Cordelia loves her father, as I do my brethren and even 
 my blacklisters, but his mind is so warped that he will not believe it. W e 
 know how the play continues throughout a maze of deception and strife 
 and war to its bitter end, where Lear, at last realizing too late the worth 
 of his disinherited daughter, dies across her dead body. 
 
 By stating that I must become penitent, we are here again reminded of 
 the old pretext of the lamb and the wolf by the brook. How could the 
 lamb disturb the water for the wolf when the wolf stood higher up and 
 above the lamb? 
 
 Doctor Williamson, of the Synod’s College at Rock Island, 111., told me 
 that certain brethren or students refuse to treat me as a brother merely 
 because of envy ; and I may ask, how could Abel repent because Cain 
 envied him? The more Abel loved his brother the more execrable he 
 appeared to Cain. Nay, Christ appeared so abominable to his blacklisters 
 
7 
 
 that they even claimed he was possessed by devils. And the more sym- 
 pathy and love they find me being in possession of, the more hateful I 
 seem to appear to the eyes of the blacklisters. 
 
 As, therefore, nothing else but envy can be the real leaven in all these 
 troubles, by publishing that I must become penitent the blacklisters have 
 securedly bolted the front-door as they formerly did the back-door after 
 throwing me down the back-stairs. 
 
 When, for instance, the president of the Boston District writes me, 
 while still on the back-stairs, that the reason why he and the brethren are 
 unwilling to assist me to a good substantial parish is because I seem to 
 have troubles wherever I have been, and when for such reasons in the 
 past I have been deprived of the needed moral and financial backing, 
 how can I become penitent, as long as no fair trial and investigation is 
 granted me? 
 
 When these blacklisters have deprived me of a brother’s hand, and 
 stealthily suspended me at the back-door on the pretense that I am 
 demented or of an unbalanced mind, how can I become a penitent, as 
 long as they deny me a consistent medical examination a person suspected 
 of being insane is entitled to ? In short, one of the fundamental princi- 
 ples of law and justice lies in granting “the other party” a chance to be 
 heard before judgment is pronounced, fair play being a jewel. 
 
 No Vision of Social Justice. 
 
 More than two years ago, the president of the Synod, Doctor Norelius, 
 wrote to me : 
 
 You ask, if “ the stronger ” is always in the right? “ The stronger ” is not in 
 the right because of his might, but solely because of being in the truth. 
 
 Truly, in the religion of Jesus the poor are exalted if they are in the 
 paths of righteousness. 
 
 This truth will also tell us, that even if the martyrs were slain by “ the 
 stronger,” the slain were the real victors. And, to use the statement in 
 the last number of the American Magazine , this same truth will tell us : 
 
 When an institution is young, it possesses abounding vitality, it has hope and 
 faith. But when an institution (as for instance the Augustana Synod) grows 
 old and fearful, begins to lose its confidential hold upon life, instinctively it 
 seeks to replace its failing vigor with material proofs of its greatness and power. 
 As the spirit dies, stone buildings rise up. 
 
 Then we discover both clergymen and lay workers in many cases devoting a 
 very large part of their time, not to progressive religious work but to getting 
 together huge sums of money which, as our endowment funds, put out at inter- 
 est, will support the work of their churches. No longer able to command the 
 enthusiastic allegiance and the willing offerings of the people (as I did here in 
 Concord, taking in the poor and increasing the influx of money to our missions, 
 schools, etc.), they resort to the ready alternative of interest-bearing stocks and 
 bonds. The struggle for money, indeed, is often fierce enough. And a religion 
 
8 
 
 which, according to Keir Hardie, demands 17 hours a day for organization and 
 leaves nothing for a single honest thought about starving and despairing men, 
 women and children, has no message for this age. Many of the rich are in the 
 churches : nearly all of the poor are outside. The churches are still far more 
 interested in having fine buildings, in being Baptists, or Presbyterians, or 
 Lutherans, than they are in reaching the people. In certain instances they may 
 help the poor child but give no thought to the causes which have made him 
 poor. They have no vision of social justice ; they have no message for the com- 
 mon people. They are afraid to face the world “ without purse or scrip ” (as I 
 did when I lovingly placed myself at the disposal of the brethren of the New 
 York Conference by leaving my flourishing charge in Minnesota, innocently 
 believing that there is such a thing as a brotherhood of ministers) : they have 
 no faith. And without such vision how shall they reach the hearts of men ? 
 Of what purpose is their “ passion for efficiency ”? 
 
 “ The world,” says the Rev. Dr. Cochran, of Philadelphia, “ will not be satis- 
 fied with our religious professions, until we attack the causes of poverty and 
 disease with the same enthusiasm and persistency that we palliate the symp- 
 toms. 
 
 Until the Protestant churches have that vision which inspires men to a new 
 sense of the brotherhood of humanity, which is the expression of the Fatherhood 
 of God, they will never “ get back to the people.” They will never reach the 
 poor, or foreigner, or the Jew, or the negro. Can the Protestant churches, 
 divided among themselves, full of the pride of tradition, and rich in worldly pos- 
 sessions, ever rise to the situation? 
 
 Courage, a Love of the Morally Beautiful 
 
 In compliance with the statement made by “the deacons ” of the Con- 
 cord “congregation,” that it is absolutely necessary for the welfare of the 
 congregation to get me removed, and that Rev. Aslev, of Lowell, may 
 defer to render a more thoroughgoing account as to the real facts, I have 
 kept away from this congregation as far as my pocketbook, etc., have 
 allowed me. 
 
 In fact, not only my jaded wife but even I myself am afraid of having 
 anything whatever to do with any congregation of the Synod, as long as 
 I find that the blacklisting brethren are cutting the ground from under 
 me. Even such men as Huss, Luther, etc., were granted safe conducts by 
 their respective sovereigns, but, according to the averments made by 
 Doctor Nelsenius, etc., I am without a friend at court. 
 
 Able to fill any position, and never yet having been in need of disgrac- 
 ing charity, but able and willing to work, and in possession of as high 
 marks as any of the brethren as to ability and willingness to fill my 
 calling as minister, my reputation that I am capable and desirous of doing 
 well and the award needed to establish me in my true standing, and ren- 
 der it for the interest of the slanderers to leave inv honor untarnished, 
 must be granted me as safe conduct before it would be permissible for me 
 to be at home and beat up my quarters within the Synod. 
 
 I cannot but think that the majority of the brethren will get courage 
 enough to grant me such safe conduct. Is not courage a love of the mor- 
 ally beautiful more than life? 
 
 Concord, N. H., June 10, 1909. 
 
 C. J. A. HOLMGREN.