kened." Not only the lay preachers, but even all the "awakened
souls" in the neighbouring parishes looked upon the Ingmarssons and
their fellow-parishioners as great sinners, and whenever they
caught the sound of the bells from their church they would say the
bells were tolling, "Sleep in your sins! Sleep in your sins!"

The whole congregation, old and young alike, were furious when they
learned that people spoke in that way of their bells. They knew
that their folks never forgot to repeat the Lord's Prayer whenever
the church bells rang, and that every evening, at the time of the
Angelus, the menfolk uncovered their heads, the women courtesied,
and everybody stood still about as long as it takes to say an Our
Father. All who have lived in that parish must acknowledge that God
never seemed so mighty and so honoured as on summer evenings, when
scythes were rested, and plows were stopped in the middle of a
furrow, and the seed wagon was halted in the midst of the loading,
simply at the stroke of a bell. It was as if they knew that our
Lord at that moment was hovering over the parish on an evening
cloud--great and powerful and good--breathing His blessing upon the
whole community.

None of your college-bred men had ever taught in that parish. The
schoolmaster was just a plain, old-fashioned farmer, who was
self-taught. He was a capable man who could manage a hundred
children single-handed. For thirty years and more he had been the
only teacher there, and was looked up to by everybody. The
schoolmaster seemed to feel that the spiritual welfare of the
entire congregation rested with him, and was therefore quite
concerned at their having called a parson who was no kind of a
preacher. However, he held his peace as long as it was only a
question of introducing a new form of baptism, and elsewhere at
that; but on learning that there had also been some changes in the
administration of the Holy Communion and that people were beginning
to gather in private homes to partake of the Sacrament, he could no
longer remain passive. Although a poor man himself, he managed to
persuade some of the leading citizens to raise the money to build a
mission house. "You know me," he said to them. "I only want to
preach in order to strengthen people in the old faith. What would
be the natural result if the lay preachers were to come upon us,
with their new baptism and their new Sacrament, if there were no
one to tell the people what was the true