ABSTRACT
AT one time this country in the extreme north was perverted by pagan superstition, as were many of the adjacent lands; it was astray from the path of truth, insolent to God, and ferocious towards its neighbours. When, about the year of our salvation 1155, the Finns had scorned the peace offered to them, those two brilliant luminaries and most holy men, Erik, king of Sweden, and the blessed Henry, archbishop of Uppsala, with a victorious hand subjected them to the Christian faith and to the kingdom of Sweden. 1 After these two saints had preached the divine word, erected churches, and appointed priests to supervise them, these people became special lovers of all the virtues, particularly those of generosity and hospitality, which the inhabitants show with the utmost goodwill to all newcomers and foreigners. They are kindly to each other, unassuming, and slow to anger; but if they have been baited for a long time, they will compensate for their tardiness with powerful vengeance. They live in small communities dispersed among parishes and villages. They have splendidly built churches, occupy themselves strenuously in erecting new ones, and show the greatest reverence for their priests, paying tithes from everything. Again, they are so well instructed by them in the divine law, with an interpreter employed in the pulpit according to custom, that their former errors have been eradicated and they prove most ready and eager, in noble frame of mind, to follow every honourable practice.
1155
St Erik the king, St Henry the archbishop
Finns are converted Generosity Hospitality
They live in small communities
Sermon through an interpreter
