The Last Letter Home Read online

  One day in Easter week when she was busy with spring cleaning, Manda Svensson came to call.

  Kristina had not seen their neighbor woman for many weeks and had wondered about this.

  Manda had completely changed. Her eyes were wild and roaming and her mind disturbed: “I don’t know what to do! Can you help me, Kristina?”

  Manda had helped them many times during the winter. Today she herself needed help.

  “What in all the world . . . ? What is the matter?”

  “Trouble in my soul.”

  “In your soul . . . ?”

  Kristina stopped still with the broom in her hand. Manda had always been neat and clean, but today she looked dirty and sloppy, her hair hung in strings down her cheeks.

  “Kristina!” It came like a wail. “I doubt the Lutherans have got it right. If I should die I’m afraid I’ll be lost.”

  Now Kristina could guess what had happened; her neighbor had listened to Fredrik Nilsson, who said that a person must experience a new baptism in order to earn salvation. And Manda had felt that every word he said was true and right. Immersion seemed to her the only, the glorious, the true religion. She had started to doubt and worry. Should she leave their church and be baptized? For several weeks she had been unable to sleep nights, she only turned and twisted and suffered.

  “What does Algot think?”

  “He doesn’t want to go through another baptism. He wants to remain a Lutheran.”

  “That isn’t good. A couple should not separate in religion.”

  “Exactly what Algot says! I want to become a Baptist and he wants to remain a Lutheran. Who must give in?” And she looked expectantly, questioningly at Kristina.

  “Have you talked to our pastor?”

  “Yes, but he only condemns me. He calls Nilsson a false prophet, a seducer who should be put in jail. But he is really a martyr, like St. Stephen.”

  What Kristina heard depressed her. Must difference in religion now part married couples also, whom God had joined together?

  “Pastor Stenius doesn’t leave us in peace a moment, he wants so to baptize our little son.”

  Algot and Manda had a boy about six months old. He should have been christened long ago but it had been delayed because of the intense cold when babies couldn’t be taken outside. And since the mother had begun to doubt the Lutheran tenets, she didn’t want her son baptized in that faith. But Pastor Stenius gave her no peace. She actually had to hide the child from him.

  “You mean he wants to christen him by force?” asked Kristina in surprise.

  “The pastor says it is his duty to christen the child. He would rather see a mother throw her offspring right into a fire than leave it to the Anabaptists.”

  “But he can’t christen him against the will of the parents?”

  “It’s his duty as pastor, he says.”

  And Manda told how Pastor Stenius, the day before, in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Olausson had come to their house; empowered by his office he was going to baptize their heathen child. Olausson and his wife, known as upright Christians, were to be the witnesses. Algot was out in the forest and she was alone at home. The pastor walked out into the kitchen and took down her fine soup tureen from its shelf, the one with blue flowers and leaves. Then he had ordered her to put on a kettle of pure water and when it was lukewarm pour it into the soup bowl which he wanted to use as a font. The Olaussons aided the minister and tried to frighten her: God’s doom would be upon her if the child were lost because she refused to have it baptized.

  But she didn’t put on any water, nor did she swaddle the little one in christening-veil—she refused to hand him over for baptism.

  She had been so upset she didn’t know what to do, but when Mrs. Olausson poured the water into the tureen and Pastor Stenius opened his book, she had picked up her lastborn from his crib, wrapped a shawl around him, and run outside. She had run as fast as she could, a long way into the forest. There she had hidden in some bushes for a whole hour while the child cried to high heaven. At last she discovered why he hollered so—he was covered with ants and his whole body was red. Then she had gone home to put something on to ease the itch, and by that time the uninvited guests had left.

  But now she was afraid they might come back sometime when she was out, and Algot would let them baptize the boy in the Lutheran religion.

  “But they can’t do it by force,” Kristina comforted the worried mother. “Not here in America.”

  “The minister says I’ve forgotten my duties, and he must christen the child because God has ordered him to.”

  “In the old country they could do as they pleased, they were that mighty, but not here.”

  Kristina recalled that the minister at home in Ljuder had forcibly christened one of the Akians’ children many years ago. It was her Uncle Danjel’s father in Kärragärde who had thus been baptized while the parents were away. The minister had feared the Akians would themselves christen the child and he had wanted to save the newborn from the sectarians. The parents had been in the field haying and had left the boy at home with an old feeble-minded woman. The minister knew this and had used the opportunity. The Akians had been greatly incensed, but the minister had only replied: While the negligent parents harvested fodder for the cattle—which seemed to them more valuable than their child’s salvation—he had harvested a soul for God’s kingdom.

  “But I don’t believe a forced baptism is holy and just,” said Kristina. “I think the pastor should leave the child alone until you and Algot agree about the christening.”

  Manda Svensson rocked her body back and forth on the chair, her eyes red, her mind befuddled.

  “But I’m worrying about my own salvation.” She wailed like a child. “Lutheran sermons don’t comfort my soul any longer. What shall I do?”

  Kristina had not been ordained, she was no pastor—how could she help another person in spiritual trouble? But she could not let her neighbor leave without some comfort; she would tell her what she herself believed, she would share her own convictions:

  There were said to be more than a hundred religions in America. But there was only one God. In her heart she felt there could only be one. Yes, she was absolutely sure of it! Those hundred religions could therefore be nothing but people’s inventions which God didn’t pay any attention to. God could never have meant that the teachings of the Prince of Peace should cause strife and disunity and quarrels among people. And he surely did not intend that ministers should start fighting about a human soul as soon as it was born into the world. The ministers were wrong in fighting with each other for innocent babes in their cradles.

  Nor did she believe a person’s eternal salvation depended on membership in one congregation or another. Each one must seek God until he or she found him, and then she would know what was right; then she need no longer worry about eternity.

  If Manda now let them pour water on her in a new baptism, then her husband would suffer from this; even though they were husband and wife they would have to go to different churches on Sunday. This would hurt both Algot and herself. She would be doing something wrong; she would not be obeying God’s will.

  Kristina’s honest advice to her neighbor was this: She must wait with her baptism until Algot no longer objected.

  Manda had listened eagerly and when she left she said she would deeply ponder the advice given her. She understood that Kristina herself had peace and joy in her soul, and only such a person could help another human being.

  Some time later the news spread that Algot and Manda Svensson had baptized their son in the Lutheran faith. They had made a bargain: The wife let the husband baptize their child in the old faith, the husband let the wife be baptized in the new.

  —3—

  The settlers were living through a time of spiritual confusion. The hundred religions that were preached in North America caused Kristina great wonderment. She could not understand what separated the churches and the sects from one another. There were sects a
nd offsprings of sects. Ulrika had said there were eight different kinds of Baptists alone in America. And there was the Institution of the Lutherans, the Immersion of the Baptists, and the Fulfillment Teaching of the Methodists. All kinds of teachings were preached, faith teachings, salvation teachings, eternity teachings, grace teachings. Who could keep them all in his head and explain them all? When Kristina read in Hemlandet about Congregationalists, Wesleyans, Unitarians, Episcopalians, it sounded to her like so many tribes of wild heathens.

  And in this country Messiahs arose anew every year. Last year alone fourteen persons each insisted they were the returning Christ who had come to America. Several of them were put in insane asylums. There was indeed a confusion in faith and baptism: I would rather see a mother throw her child into the fire than . . .

  The Lutherans baptized in a font, the Baptists in the river—but could it really make a great deal of difference?

  River or font? Christening water should be clear, pure, and unsullied, because it must blot out sins, but could it make any difference if it came from a well or a river?

  One Sunday last spring Kristina had been invited to Stillwater to see the great baptismal festival of Ulrika’s brethren. The Baptists had their place of immersion some distance outside town in the St. Croix River. That Sunday there were eighteen converts to be received into the congregation and enjoy the rebirth of a baptismal bath. Kristina was permitted to view the consecration from the shore.

  A great many people were gathered and those who were to be baptized were standing apart near a huge boulder on the shore, separated from those who already were members of the congregation. They were all dressed in wide, white shirts that covered their bodies from neck to heel; converts’ clothes were white as angels’ wings. Men and women were dressed alike, but bearded faces and short hair indicated who the men were. In the group of the converts Kristina noticed women older than herself, and one old man with a gray beard covering his shirt front, perhaps seventy years, yet here he was to be reborn like a child in the river water.

  It was a warm Sunday with the water calm under the tall trees at the edge of the river; it was almost like a lake. In a rowboat, half pulled up on the shore, stood Ulrika’s husband, the congregations minister, Pastor Henry O. Jackson. His head was bare and he wore a black coat which hung to his knees. He had preached in barns and sawmills, in cabins and sheds—today the rowboat was his pulpit.

  The pastor began to sing a hymn and the people on shore joined in. Ulrika had sung this song for Kristina and she recognized some of the words:

  Down to the sacred wave

  The Lord of Life was led;

  And he who came our souls to save

  In Jordan bowed his head.

  He taught the solemn way;

  He fixed the Holy rite;

  He bade his ransomed ones obey,

  And keep the path of Light.

  The human voices rose powerfully under the clear sky; there was an eagerness and life in the Baptists’ singing that Kristina had never heard in a Lutheran church. The hymn about the Lord of Life echoed against the cliffs, rose heavenward, away from this fleeting world. It rose on the comforting assurance of another world that had no end. The congregation was filled with joy that eighteen people were to be reborn through baptism, their souls to enter the Kingdom of God.

  Then the pastor in the boat began to speak to the white-garbed group on the shore.

  Suddenly it seemed to Kristina that she had seen this before; her ears had heard this voice, her eyes had seen this gathering: a man in a boat, preaching to people in white garments on a shore! There had been men in long beards listening to the Word, standing quite still, as still as the cliff on which their feet rested. And on the riverbank rose high, brown hills. A wilderness land; she recognized it all! Where had she experienced this? Was it the memory of a picture that came to her mind? Only in one book could she have seen such a picture. Or was it an impression of something she had read in this book that changed into a vision: “The people of the land were baptized by him in the river, and they confessed their sins.”

  A man spoke from a boat to the people on the shore. But it was another river, another shore, another time. The river’s name was Jordan, and it had happened many years ago.

  Who was the man there in the boat? Who was it that spoke? He used English but she understood all he said, for it wasn’t the words she heard, it was the voice that uttered the words. She recognized it so well, the voice that once had welcomed them on the shores of this very river. The man in that boat had met them when they arrived, had brought them to his house and given them food. He had sheltered her and her children when they were without house and home. Will no one help us? they had asked. This man had answered them. Who was he? Who was the man in the boat on the river Jordan preaching love and mercy to the people on shore?

  Was it Christ himself she beheld?

  Kristina put her hand to her head, feeling dizzy. Was she dreaming? Was she forgetting that she was among sectarians? That she was viewing the great Baptist festival? For a moment she had forgotten that these people were said to teach a false religion; she had felt uplifted in her soul by their singing of a joyous hymn. Yet had the pastor of her own church been here today he would have shed tears of sorrow over these lost souls who were gathered here.

  Now she saw the man in the black frock coat leave the boat and wade out into the river. He waded fully clothed, his long coattails dragging in the water behind him. He walked resolutely forward, now the water reached to his knees but he walked on. When the water reached to his waist he stopped and turned toward the shore and said something. He was calling a name.

  Pastor Henry O. Jackson had commenced to distribute the sacrament of baptism to the white group on the shore; he called the first by name.

  The oldest among them was to go first. The old man with the gray beard heard his name and waded slowly toward the pastor. He moved clumsily, awkwardly, he was not accustomed to walking in water; he stumbled, almost fell over some stones in the river bottom. The water splashed around his legs, his white garments were getting soaked.

  But out there in the river stood the black-coated man who stretched his hand toward the man in the white shirt. Pastor Jackson received the old one, took a sturdy hold of his neck with his left hand and laid his right against the man’s chest. For a few moments both stood still. Then the pastors hands became active: He pressed the old one’s head and chest under water. The white-garbed one had vanished; the pastor stood alone in the river.

  Kristina held her breath, moved her hand quickly to her mouth; she had almost cried out: He’ll drown!

  She waited, perhaps only a few seconds, but the waiting was tantalizing. Pastor Jackson read something, probably the baptismal prayer, then the gray beard popped up out of the water, the hair well slicked down over the skull. Water dripped from his forehead and neck after the immersion. The pastor let go his grip and the old one stumbled as if ready to fall. Pastor Jackson steadied him by his shoulders. Finally he laid his hands on the old man’s chest, probably to bless him.

  The old man had experienced his rebirth and began to wade back to the shore, splashing the water with his legs in his insecure, unsteady walk. Water fell in large drops from his beard, ran in runnels from his hair. He coughed, spitted, and cleared his throat; water had gotten into his mouth and nose. The white shroud clung to his body as he stepped ashore and was met by fellow believers who took him by the hands and led him to their flock. The congregation greeted their new member in a communal outcry, hands were raised over his head—the brethren also wished to call down the Lord’s blessings upon him.

  . . . and as He rose from the waters, lo, then were the heavens opened . . .

  The immersion went on, Pastor Jackson calling for one proselyte convert after another. And each in turn hearkened to his call and waded out in the river and was immersed with his whole body. All were baptized in the stream—in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, like unt
o a rebirth, a new body.

  The eighteenth and last was a tender girl with heavy golden hair falling far down her back. Her head was dipped and when it came up again tufts of hair stuck round her head—it seemed evil, hairy water snakes had stuck to her down there and clung to her.

  The girl almost fell on her face as she walked back to the shore; she had stumbled on something. The pastor grabbed her under the arms, lifted her up, and led her ashore. Trembling, the girl huddled in her soaked, tight-clinging dress. Only a short time before had the ice broken up on the river, the last floes were barely melted. It hurt Kristina to see the poor girl so cold after the immersion—she walked like a dizzy person.

  After the sacrament in the river the newborn were given warm milk and cake at the pastors home. Ulrika told Kristina that the converts needed a hot drink after their soaking or they might catch cold. She herself had been taken with a terrible influenza when her husband gave her the immersion sacrament in the St. Croix River in the spring of 1851; that whole summer she had gone with a dripping nose, blowing it and blowing until she almost blew the tip of it away.

  In the evening Pastor Jackson caught a ride on a settler wagon to Marine, where he would hold a supper meeting. When Ulrika was alone with her guest in the living room she wondered what Kristina thought of the baptismal celebration.

  “I wouldn’t want to be dipped down like that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Terrible to be pushed under!”