Unto a Good Land Read Online Free PDF

seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; he was said to have grown so rich that he had the tusks pulled out of his evil mouth and replaced by pure gold. Could a mortal here on earth descend to lower depths of vanity and conceit?
    Landberg continued: The people in Bishop Hill believed Erik Janson would rise from the dead in the same manner as his predecessor, Christ. They went about their chores now, making their brick, distilling their brännvin, while waiting for their master’s return. Jesus arose on the third day, but six weeks had already elapsed since Janson was shot, and nothing had been heard from him so far as anyone knew.
    And this much Landberg said he wished to add: Should Wheat-flour Jesus return to the American continent alive, there were many who would be glad to shoot him a second time.
    Captain Lorentz thought to himself, Janson had undoubtedly been in many ways a fine man. But he realized how important it was for Landberg to give vent to his feelings, so he had not interrupted him. Now he returned to their business at hand: “Now you must again help me unload my human cargo.”
    “Gladly, Captain. I am free at present.”
    Landberg was pleased to get a new commission; his income had been poor lately, since no emigrant ship had arrived from Sweden for some time. For a while he had helped English captains. But most immigrants this year were German or Irish. If only he had known German, then his income would have been better. It was hard this year to earn an honest living, he told the captain. The swindlers and the runners were as fast as ever, but an honest agent was recognized by all captains: a thin man!
    “And tall as a mast,” added Captain Lorentz.
    “Precisely, Captain! And how large is the cargo this time?”
    “Seventy. Most of them are going inland.”
    “Fine. The immigrant transfer, Isaac Newton, runs now every second day up the Hudson to Albany.”
    The two men began to go over the list of passengers and their destinations. While so occupied, Landberg remembered that he had a message to the captain from a well-known countryman: The Methodist pastor, Olof Hedström, on the Bethel Ship here in the harbor, sent his greeting and intended to pay a call the following morning.
    “Hmm. So Pastor Hedström is still preaching on his old ship. Tell him he is welcome. A fine fellow; he might help the people a great deal.”
    Through fortunate circumstances, the Swedish Methodists in New York had been permitted to unrig an old ship and turn it into a church. Lorentz had been on board the Bethel Ship after she had been converted into a God’s House and he had liked it there. Now that the Charlotta was beginning to rot, perhaps some other sect might buy his ship and make a church of her, here in New York Harbor. He mused that it might mark great progress for Christianity if all old, worn-out ships, those nests of sin, could be stripped of their rigging and turned into churches.
    Pastor Hedström undoubtedly was coming to invite the immigrants to a sermon and Holy Communion aboard his Bethel Ship. And Lorentz thought he must ask the minister to make it clear to the passengers that he belonged to the Methodist religion before he gave them the Sacrament. After the Charlotta ’s previous voyage, some of the Lutheran immigrants had received the Lord’s Supper on the Bethel Ship, and only later had it been made fully clear to them that they had been given the Sacrament by a sectarian minister, a teacher of heresy. They had been thrown into great anguish and fear of eternal judgment; they had prayed to God that He might let them throw up the false tokens of grace, but their prayers had not been heard. Yes, even the souls of the emigrants were the responsibility of the captain of an emigrant ship.
    “Yes, my old carpenter—three days from now you’ll get another load of Swedish farmers for the North American Republic.”
    And on June 26, early in the morning, when the three-day quarantine was