USA > Illinois > Henry County > Bishop Hill > A history of Bishop Hill, Illinois : also biographical sketches of many early pioneers in Illinois, 100 years > Part 6
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that ere many years had passed it was rumored that Jonas Olson was one of the most prosperous men in the parish. The year 1825 was the epoch-making period of his life. If there was any one vice which the peasantry was addicted to more than another it was the vice of intemperance. But hand-in-hand with in- temperance went general laxity of morals. The clergy was no better than the peasantry. The Rev. Mr. Sherdin never waived his privilege of dancing the first round with the bride at wed- dings, and drank as deep as any of his parishioners. The tithes of grain which the good pastor received he sold again to his flock in the form of distilled liquor. Moreover, it was known that at least one unfortunate girl had owned the associate pastor to be the father of her child. It was at a dance in the winter of 1825 that liquor was passed around in sacrilegious mockery of the Lord's Supper. The incident made a deep impression on Jonas Olson's mind. He became converted, and forthwith re- solved to lead a new life. He renounced all worldly amusements and gave himself up to the quiet introspective life of a follower of Christ. He studied the Word of God assiduously, and read the devotional literature of the Lutheran Church, especially the works of Luther, Arndt, and Nohrborg. On his frequent visits to Stockholm he bought books and visited the public libraries, so that, for a peasant, he became an unusually well-read man. It was in Stockholm that he made the acquaintance of C. O. Rosenius, the celebrated Swedish representative of Hallean pietism, and became a constant reader of the church paper edited by him. It was here, too, that he met George Scott, an English Methodist clergyman, who was established in the Swed- ish capital as chaplain to Samuel Owen, a wealthy English manufacturer. Scott was a man of ability and enthusiasm, and his influence was not limited to the employes of Samuel Owen. He preached in Stockholm from 1830 to 1842 with great suc- cess, and although he had had a predecessor in a certain Metho- dist clergyman by the name of Stewens, he may properly be considered as the founder of the Methodist Church in Sweden. In him Jonas Olson found a warm and sympathetic friend, with whom he had many extended conversations upon religious sub- jects. Jonas Olson, indeed, never openly embraced Methodism, but was greatly influenced by its teachings, and even accepted its cardinal doctrine of sanctification.
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It was, however, especially in the matter of temperance reform that the two friends met on common ground. Under Scott's direction Jonas Olson began to organize temperance societies in his own and neighboring parishes. At first he met with considerable opposition. The clergy objected that Jesus at Canaan had not disdained to encourage the social practice of putting the wedding guests under the table. Jonas Olson's own pastor accused him of heinous designs upon his distillery. But the Crown soon lent its support to the movement, and then the clergy were everywhere among the first to sign the pledge.
But it was not only as an organizer of temperance societies that Jonas Olson found expression for his change of attitude towards religion. Immediately upon his conversion in 1825 he had begun to preach in the conventicles of the Devotionalists, who were just then beginning to appear in Söderala Parish, in the province of Helsingland. In 1826 he married his first wife. The marriage proved a happy one, although but of short dura- tion. The death of his wife, after only a year and a half of mar- ried life, caused him to throw himself with additional zeal into church work, and it was due to him that Devotionalism was carried to every quarter of the province of Helsingland.
The Devotionalists were pietists, using the word in the broader sense in which it is employed by Heppe and Rieschl. They did not form a separate sect. They were merely individuals who were dissatisfied with the absence of vital piety in the Established Church, and who wished to introduce a living Chris- tianity by private preaching and by the superior piety of their lives. They were called Devotionalists, or Readers (Läsare), because they assembled in private houses to hold devotional meetings, and because they read their Bibles and books of de- votion assiduously in their homes.
C. A. Cornelius says in his history of the Swedish Church, "If we consider European Christianity in its entirety, church work in the nineteenth century . . . has been characterized by an endeavor to repair the injury wrought by the century of the Illumniation, and, if possible, to restore the old order of things." It was this reactionary tendency which, in the Swedish Church, was represented by Devotionalism.
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Devotionalism had this in common with other pietistic movements in the latter part of the eighteenth and the begin- ning of the nineteenth centuries, that it sought to purify the Church from within; that it supplemented the regular church service by convenicle worship; that it paid less attention to ob- jective purity of doctrine than subjective piety; that, in its zeal for the simplicity and vital Christianity of the Apostolic Church, it condemned many forms of amusement and recreation in themselves entirely innocent.
The clergy in the Swedish Church not being so thoroughly and generally rationalized as in other Protestant countries, the conditions were not present for a popular religious oppo- sition movement of national dimensions, and thus we find that Swedish pietism did not produce any great national leader after whom it might be named. It began to spread under local leaders in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Its stronghold was Norrland, one of the great political divisions of Sweden, of which Helsingland is a subdivision.
Economically, the province of Helsingland is well situated. It possesses rich iron mines, which yield a large annual pro- duce. It also possesses linen and other manufactures. But the principal part of the population consists of independent peas- ants, who own their land in fee-simple. Helsingland is not cursed with the system of large landed estates which obtains farther south in Sweden, and consequently there are no Torpare, or cottagers, who eke out a precarious existence on small patches of land held in return for labor services rendered to the lord. The principal city is Gefle, built on a small inlet of the Gulf of Bothnia. It has a good harbor and is one of the best built towns in Sweden. Its population exceeds twenty thousand. The commerce is considerable. The exports consist of iron, timber, flax and linens. The imports are principally corn and salt. The population of Helsingland being chiefly agricultural, there are no important towns outside of Gefle. The peasants are frugal, thrifty and industrious. Their farms are small, but well kept and well cultivated, the staple produce being flax, rye and po- tatoes. The peasants place great pride in their neat red-painted farm-houses surrounded by patches of flowers and garden-truck. The roads are fine, and distances to market convenient.
In spite of material prosperity, however, the state of edu-
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cation and morals in the early part of the present century was low. Drunkenness was a common vice. Many could not read, and few indeed were those who could write. Yet in this they were no better nor no worse than the peasantry of other Eur- opean countries at the time, for the day of modern public schools had not yet arrived. But with the advent of Devotion- alism and temperance reform a radical change took place. The people began to read and turned to habits of industry and sobriety.
It was the best part of the population which joined the Devotionalists, namely, the peasants and independent artisans. Some of the clergy, too, became interested and took part in the conventicles. But Jonas Olson continued to be the leader and the principal lay-member. He enjoyed the respect and the con- fidence of the entire community, representing it in a public capacity as juror to the district court. For seventeen years Jonas Olson and the Devotionalists of Helsingland assembled in conventicles and read their Bibles and books of devotion un- molested, enjoying their full privileges as members of the Es- tablished Church, when a new actor appeared upon the scene. This actor was Eric Janson.
II-The Rise of Jansonism
Eric Janson was born December 19, 1808 in Biskopskulla Parish, Uppland, and was the second son in a family of four sons and one daughter. His father, Johannes Mattson, was a poor man, who by thrift and industry succeeded in laying by enough means to become the owner of a small landed estate in Österunda Parish, Westmanland, where Eric spent the formative period of his youth. Eric Janson was a born religious leader. He was not a profound speculator, but was endowed with a rare gift of eloquence and an extraordinary power to control the actions of large bodies of men. Little is known of his youth, except that his education was meagre, consisting merely of the religious instruction required in a catechumen of the Established Church. While vet a mere boy he experienced the call of religion, but soon suffered a relapse, and there was nothing in his mode of life to distinguish him from the pleasure-loving youth of the social class to which he belonged.
At the age of twenty-six he experienced a miraculous cure
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from an aggravated form of rheumatism. He had for some time been suffering intense pains, but, being a man of restless, active disposition, he could not be persuaded to treat himself as an invalid. One day, as he was plowing in the fields, an unusually severe attack came upon him, in which he fainted away. On regaining consciousness, he heard a voice saying: "It is writ that whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall re- ceive; all things are possible to him that believeth. 'If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it,' saith the Lord." Eric Janson recognized in the voice a message from God, and, falling upon his knees, prayed long and fervently that his lack of faith might be forgiven him and that his health might be restored. On arising, is pains had disappeared, never to return.
From this time on his whole being was turned into religious channels. He was seized with an insatiable thirst after spiritual knowledge. He read all the books of a devotional character that were to be had, but, not finding in them the peace that he longed for, turned himself towards the Bible as the sole source of spirit- ual comfort. His own personal experience had taught him the effiacy of faith in prayer. To want of faith, then, he ascribed all the misery and suffering which he saw about him on every hand. This want of faith he attributed to the Established Church, which was concerned more with outward churchly ceremonies than with vital piety. From the subject of faith the transition of thought to the subject of sanctification was easy and natural. After prolonged study he came to the conclusion that the Lutheran doctrine of sanctification was wrong, holding that the faithful have no sin. He seems not, however, to have advocated these views in public before 1840, for, although acting as a lay-preacher among the Devotionalists of Osterunda Parish, no suspicion attached to his orthodoxy previous to that year. But in 1840 he began to preach earnestly against the assumed abuse of the devotional literature, insisting that it distracted attention from the Bible, which was the only true source of spiritual knowledge. It was not until several years later that he began to oppose in public the Lutheran doctrine of sanctifi- cation.
Up to the age of twenty-seven he remained with his parents, when, contrary to their will, he married a girl below his station. As a consequence he was thrown almost penniless upon his own
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resources. He rented a farm and undertook several small bus- iness ventures, in all of which he was successful, so that he was ultimately enabled to purchase the estate of Lötorp for 1000 rix-dollars, cash.
In 1842, having heard of the Devotionalists in Helsing- land, he visited that province as a dealer in flour, in which capacity he traveled extensively in his own and neighboring parishes. In 1843, at the age of thirty-four, he made his second visit to Helsingland. In January of this year, while pissing through Söderala Parish, he formed and acquaintance which proved to be of inestimable importance in the shaping of future events. Discovering by mere chance that Jonas Olson was a De- votionalist, he applied to him for lodging over night, and his request was hospitably granted. It was a Saturday night. The stranger appeared reserved, and had nothing to say on religious subjects. The following morning Olson's married sister came over to buy some flour. But the stranger answered, "Do you not know that to-day is the Sabbath ? We will postpone business till to-morrow." The stranger accompanied the family to church. On the way home, contrary to the custom, he said not a word about the sermon. In the afternoon his host took him to a conventicle of the Devotionalists, where he was invited to speak. But he remained silent. On taking leave the following morning he said to his host, "I have had a restless night. The Lord hath imposed a duty upon me. I have struggled in prayer to avoid it, but cannot. Be a priest in your own house. I have been here a Saturday night and a Sunday night, and you have not assembled your household in prayer."
If Jonas Olson had been previously impressed by his guest's conduct, he was not any the less so now. The rebuke was ac- cepted in humility, and from that time on Jonas Olson recog- nized in the stranger a man of God. He accompanied him to Hudiksvall and Gefle, and everywhere introduced him to the conventicles of the Devotionalists. On account of the personal standing of his introducer, Eric Janson everywhere met with a favorable reception. Everywhere he was invited to speak, and he now no longer refused. The appreciativeness of his audiences spurred him on to his most eloquent efforts, and the evident. results of his preaching convinced him that his mission as a revivalist lay in Helsingland.
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In June of the same year he made his third visit to Helsing- land. He was now in such demand that, like his great Master, he was obliged to travel by night and preach by day. His ser- mons frequently lasted from five to six hours. Many of the clergy visited his meetings, but as yet no objections were raised to his preaching. His fourth journey to Helsingland was made in the following autumn. He now decided to sell his estate in Westmanland and move to Helsingland. In the meantime, how- ever, his father died, and he moved instead into the home thus left vacant. Here he remained till April, 1844, when he ac- complished his original purpose and removed to Forsa in the north of Helsingland.
With the advent of Eric Janson to Helsingland in 1842 we may, roughly speaking, say that Jansonism begins. Eric Janson never had any large following in his own province of Westman- land, nor even in his own parish. Although, indeed, he made numerous converts outside of Helsingland, this province never- theless remained the Jansonist stronghold. The reason is to be sought in the fact that the conditions in Helsingland were par- ticularly favorable for the reception of his doctrine. To the Devotionalists of Helsingland there was nothing positively new in his teaching. The two points in which he disagreed with the Established Church were, firstly, with regard to the doctrine of sanctification ; secondly, with regard to the devotional literature. In the doctrine of sanctification he agreed with the Methodists, holding that the faithful have no sin. But, as we have seen, Jonas Olson had accepted this doctrine from George Scott, the English Methodist clergyman stationed in Stockholm. It is im- possible to ascertain whether or not Eric Janson himself ever came under the personal influence of George Scott. Some of his followers assert that he did; others assert with equal posi- tiveness that he did not. But be that as it may, in matters of faith he had much in common with John Wesley, and his style of preaching and method of delivery is said to have resembled very much that of the early Methodists. Nor was his rejection of the devotional literature new in Helsingland. In 1805, Eric Stålberg, of the parish of Piteå, had founded a sect of Sepa- ratists, which spread rapidly over the greater part of Norrland, including the province of Helsingland. One characteristic of this sect was that, with the exception of Luther's writings, it
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discouraged the use of devotional literature, saying that, at the best, human writings are full of error and only tend to distract the attention from the Word of God. Although Jonas Olson and the majority of the orthodox Devotionalists in Helsingland cannot be said to have shared this view previous to the advent of Eric Janson, they were nevertheless familiar with it.
Jansonism did not spring ready-made from the brain of its author. It was a gradual development, and the form which it ultimately assumed was largely determined by the attitude of the Established Church. Eric Janson did not at first display any separatistic tendencies. He merely preached against the rationalism and dead orthodoxy which were prevalent in the Swedish Church. He advocated a return to the simplicity and earnestness of primitive Christianity. He warned his followers to read the Word of God, and did not hesitate to punish in pub- lic the sins of prominent individuals. His preaching was of a pre-eminently nomistic character, and many even of those who thought they had found peace in God saw the vanity of their lives. He traveled from parish to parish conducting revival meetings. The number of his adherents was soon estimated at from 1500 to 4000. The clergy became alarmed at the rapid growth of a strong religious sentiment over which they had no control and the import of which they did not understand. They regarded the Jansonists as a new sect holding doctrines that were subversive of the existing church organization. In order to regain their lost hold upon their congregations they denounced Janson from the pulpit, and appeared in the conventicles to warn their parishioners against the impostor and false prophet. They attempted to refute his heresies with regard to the de- votional literature and the doctrine of sanctification. But Jan- son was gifted with a matchless power of debate, besides being well versed in the Scriptures, and whenever it came to a battle of words was almost certain to come off victorious. The Jan- sonists were refused admittance to the Lord's Supper. Eric Janson retaliated by saying that there could be no faith with- out persecution ; that there was no saving power in the sermon of an unconverted minister; and forbade his followers to worship in the Established Church, holding his conventicles at the time of the regular church service. This was the beginning of his estrangement from the Established Church.
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As the influence of Janson increased, so also the number and hostility of his enemies. His followers were subjected to the abuse and insult of the rabble. Their meetings were dis- turbed, their houses pelted with stones, and their persons as- saulted. But they praised the Lord who tried their faith by allowing them to be persecuted. They marched along the public highways at night and sang spiritual hymns, or gathered in front of the parsonages to pray for the conversion of their un- regenerate pastors. When their conventicles were prohibited they assembled in the woods and in out of the way places to partake of the Holy Communion. Faint rumors of these mid- night gatherings came to the church authorities, and the spectre of a new peasant insurrection stalked abroad. Eric Janson was regarded as a second Thomas Munzer. He was charged with all sorts of atrocious crimes. A large number of his followers were women. Women frequently accompanied him on his missionary journeys. With one of these, by the name of Sophia Schön, he was particularly accused of improper relations. One night she was surprised in her home by the pastor of Österunda Parish, who had come with a number of his henchmen to find Eric Janson, Eric Janson was, of course, not to be found ; but Sophia Schön was dragged from her bed and brought, dressed only in her linen, to the sheriff's bailiff.
In June, 1844, an event took place which gave the opponents of the new heresy an opportunity of adopting severe legal mea- sures. Already since 1840 Eric Janson had witnessed against the assumed abuse of the devotional literature. The human writ- ings of Luther, Arndt, Scriver, Nohrborg had usurped the place of the Bible. These new idols had stolen away the hearts of the people. They must be destroyed.
The burning of the books took place June 11. A great concourse of people from the country around assembled on a farm near the town of Tranberg. An immense bonfire was made of books, pamphlets, tracts-everything except the Bible, the hymn-book and the catechism. Amidst the singing of hymns and great spiritual exaltation the assemblage watched the de- struction of the "Harlot of Babylon."
The embers of the fire had hardly died out before the news was spread in every quarter of Sweden. People were horrified. Two days later, Janson was arrested by the Crown officials and
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brought before the sheriff's court in Gefle. After a preliminary trial he was transferred to the sheriff's court in Wästerås, under whose jurisdiction he properly belonged. Here his mental condition was examined into by a medical expert, while a court chaplain examined into his spiritual. He was finally released to await a new trial, but was not allowed to return to Helsingland.
In the meantime, delegations of his adherents had visited the king, and had been promised a hearing of their grievances before the proper authorities. Upon his release Janson himself sought admission to the king, and was so graciously received that he wrote back to his friends, "I have triumphed at court." In September, 1844, he was summoned to appear before court in Westerås. In his defense he stated that the Church had abused its trust ; that it had fallen from the true faith; that its servants were mere worldlings; that he was sent by God to restore the faith and show sinners the way of salvation. He was released and allowed a pass to his home in Forsa, Helsingland.
In the meantime, the ardor of his adherents in Helsingland had not abated. Jansonism was being preached in every quarter. The reappearance of the leader gave a new impetus to the move- ment. His enemies had not been able to do him any injury. The king and the highest secular authorities in the realm were his sympathizers. It was only the hierarchy of the Established Church that sought his destruction. But full amnesty might soon be expected, the abominable machinations of the Church would be twarted, the dawn of religious freedom was not far distant. So thought his simple-minded followers. His journey through Helsingland was one continued ovation. Everywhere the people flocked to the conventicles. Those who were left in doubt by his preaching were converted by the magnetic touch of his hand. In some parishes the churches remained almost empty.
October 28, 1844, te second crusade against religious books took place-this time in Söderala Parish-and now not even the hymn-book and the catechism were spared. Janson was im- mediately arrested. But there was reason to be cautious. He was again released to await a new trial. Hardly had he been released before he was rearrested and condemned to a short im- prisonment for holding revival meetings. December 18 he was
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summoned before the House of Bishops in Upsala. His case was not decided.
It would be neither profitable nor interesting to rehearse the legal chicanery and petty persecution with which his life was embittered, and by which he was agged on, as it were, to abandon all Lutheran traditions and assume a position of open hostility to the Established Church. Through the zeal of the inferior clergy he was arrested six times, being three times re- leased by royal orders ; twice he was admitted to the king; he was transferred from one court to another; but, it is claimed, never received a thorough and impartial investigation.
His followers were subjected to the same sort of treatment. The ancient and obsolete law against conventicles, adopted in 1726 against Hallean pietists and other heretics, was revived in all its severity. Jonas Olson and his younger brother, Olof Olson, were made to pay heavy fines for participating in the destruction of the religious books and for holding conventicles. They also were summoned before the House of Bishops in Upsala to an- swer for their religious opinions.
Finally, a price was set upon Eric Janson's head. He was hunted from place to place, leading a life as adventurous as even that of the sweet singer of Brandenburg in the seventeenth cen- tury. On being captured, his friends feared that he would never be released, and conspired to effect his escape. Some of them, under color of violence, took him away from the Crown official, as he was being conveyed from Gefle to Westerås, and brought him over the mountains into Norway. From there he went to Copenhagen, where, in the company of a few friends, he em- barked for New York. In July, 1846, he arrived in Victoria, Knox County, Illinois, whither he had been preceded by Olof Olson.
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