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THE NATIONAL CHURCH OF SWEDEN. 
LECTURE I. 
INTRODUCTORY. THE COUNTRY AND ITS INHABITANTS 
IN THE HEATHEN PERIOD. 
§ 1.—OBJECT OF THESE LECTURES : TO PROMOTE BROTHERLY 
INTERCOURSE, 
The National Church of Sweden deserves, on many 
accounts, to be better known than it is by English-speaking 
races. It is the Church of a nation closely akin to the 
English, and, at many periods, largely influenced by men 
of English birth. Its history pursues a course in many 
ways comparable to that of the English Church. It has 
been ornamented by the lives of many distinguished men, 
and it has fostered a type of national character by the 
examples of which other Churches may well strive to profit. 
It has also lessons of warning to offer, and it suggests a 
number of problems to those who look for light upon the 
future of Christendom. 
While the lessons of this history must be directly valu- 
able to the Churches of the Anglican Communion, whether 
in Europe or America, or in the other parts of the globe 
where British and Swedish missions are in contact, it may 
be hoped that a considerate and sympathetic study of the 
subject will be acceptable also to dwellers in Sweden itself, 
and to the great body of Swedish settlers in the United 
States of America, who come into very close relation to 
members of our own Churches. 
I have implied that the main object which I have set 
before me in these lectures is the promotion of mutual know- 
ledge between the Churches and peoples of the Anglican 
Communion and the Swedish Church and people, and the