isolation which alone insured the communal solidarity. Already store
clothes are being worn, photographs are seen on the walls, "worldly"
furniture is being used, libraries, those openers of closed minds, are
in every schoolhouse, and newspapers and magazines are "allowed."

The experiences of Eric Janson and his devotees whom he led out of
Sweden to Bishop Hill Colony, in Illinois, are replete with dramatic
and tragic details. Janson was a rugged Swedish peasant, whose
eloquence and gift of second sight made him the prophet of the
Devotionalists, a sect that attempted to reëstablish the simplicity of
the primitive church among the Lutherans of Scandinavia. Driven from
pillar to post by the relentless hatred of the Established Church,
they sought refuge in America, where Janson planned a theocratic
socialistic community. Its communism was based entirely upon religious
convictions, for neither Janson nor any of his illiterate followers
had heard of the politico-economic systems of French reformers. Over
one thousand young and vigorous peasants followed him to America. The
first contingent of four hundred arrived in 1846 and spent their first
winter in untold miseries and privations, with barely sufficient food,
but with enough spiritual fervor to kindle two religious services a
day and three on Sunday. Attacking the vast prairies with their
primitive implements, harvesting grain with the sickle and grinding it
by hand when their water power gave out, sheltering themselves in
tents and caves, enduring agues and fevers, hunger and cold, the
majority still remained loyal to the leader whose eloquence fired them
with a sustaining hope. Thrift, unremitting toil, the wonderful
fertility of the prairie, the high price of wheat, flax, and broom
corn, were bound to bring prosperity. In 1848 they built a huge brick
dormitory and dining hall, a great frame church, and a number of
smaller dwellings. Improved housing at once told on the general