78 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



or one to about every 1000 of the inhabitants. In Norway 

 the number is 500, or about one to 2500 inhabitants. 



The church service is simple and well performed. There 

 is much singing, but no ranting, and the men and women 

 occupy different seats in the church. All parochial and 

 other notices, such as notices of auctions, rewards for the 

 recovery of lost and stolen goods, etc., are read from the 

 pulpit after the service is over. 



The Sunday is far better observed in general by the 

 peasants than the higher classes, and certain Sundays in the 

 year are held much more sacred than others. There are 

 besides many holidays in the course of the year, on which 

 no work is done. Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer, are 

 very strictly observed. Holy Communion is a frequent 

 observance with the Swedish peasants. 



It is rather curious to the stranger here that the Lord's 

 Day is supposed to begin at 6 p.m. on the Saturday night, 

 and to end at 6 p.m. on the Sunday. The church bell tolls at 

 six on the Saturday evening, when in general the peasants 

 knock off work, and wash and clothe themselves for the 

 Sunday, and as the religious duties of the Sunday are sup- 

 posed to end at 6 p.m., it is no unusual thing to see a priest 

 who has been preaching in church during the morning en- 

 joying his social rubber of whist in the evening. Now if the 

 Sunday really did begin at 6 p.m. on the Saturday and end 

 at 6 p.m. on the Sunday, this would not appear strange, but 

 still, if the early part of any one day is dedicated wholly 

 to the service of the Lord, I think it but consistent that we 

 should end the day in the same fashion, especially if it is the 

 Sabbath; and I for one cannot think that a healthy, moral 

 example is set to the lower classes of any land, where the 

 richer ones invariably fix the evening of the Sunday for balls, 

 concerts, entertainments in the theatres, and in their own 

 houses, and the more especially as I could never see that the 

 Saturday evening was in the least recognized as the com- 

 mencement of the Sabbath. 



I am not here going to play the hypocrite, for, as Burns 

 observes, " God knows Fm not the thing I should be," but 



