gentry who live in its modest manor halls. It is a different folk
to whom one is introduced in "Jerusalem," the people of Dalecarlia,
the province of Miss Lagerloef's adopted home. They, too, have their
dancing festivals at Midsummer Eve, and their dress is the most
gorgeous in Sweden, but one thinks of them rather as a serious and
solid community given to the plow and conservative habits of
thought. They were good Catholics once; now they are stalwart
defenders of Lutheranism, a community not easily persuaded but,
once aroused, resolute to act and carry through to the uttermost.
One thinks of them as the people who at first gave a deaf ear to
Gustaf Vasa's appeal to drive out the Danes, but who eventually
followed him shoulder to shoulder through the very gates of
Stockholm, to help him lay the foundations of modern Sweden. Titles
of nobility have never prospered in Dalecarlia; these stalwart
landed peasants are a nobility unto themselves. The Swedish people
regard their Dalecarlians as a reserve upon whom to draw in times
of crisis.

"Jerusalem" begins with the history of a wealthy and powerful
farmer family, the Ingmarssons of Ingmar Farm, and develops to
include the whole parish life with its varied farmer types, its
pastor, schoolmaster, shopkeeper, and innkeeper. The romance
portrays the religious revival introduced by a practical mystic
from Chicago which leads many families to sell their ancestral
homesteads and--in the last chapter of this volume--to emigrate in
a body to the Holy Land.

Truth is stranger than fiction. "Jerusalem" is founded upon the
historic event of a religious pilgrimage from Dalecarlia in the
last century. The writer of this introduction had opportunity to
confirm this fact some years ago when he visited the parish in
question, and saw the abandoned farmsteads as well as homes to
which some of the Jerusalem-farers had returned. And more than
this, I had an experience of my own which seemed to reflect this
spirit of religious ecstasy. On my way to the inn toward midnight
I met a cyclist wearing a blue jersey, and on the breast, instead
of a college letter, was woven a yellow cross. On meeting me the
cyclist dismounted and insisted on shouting me the way. When we
came to the inn I offered him a krona. My guide smiled as though he
was possessed by a beatific vision. "No! I will not take the money,
but the gentleman will buy my bicycle!" As I expressed my
astonishment at this request, he