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Page 52
Just when the noise was at its height a window pane was sprung,
and the shattered glass fell jingling against the floor. A violent
gust of wind rushed through the room, and then Karin thought she
heard a laugh quite close to her ear--the same kind of laugh that
she had heard in the dream. She fancied she was about to die. Never
had she felt such a sense of terror; her heart stopped, and her
whole body became numb and cold as ice.
All at once the noise died down, and Karin, as it were, came back
to life. The raw night wind came sweeping into the room; so after a
little Karin decided to get up and stuff something into the broken
window pane. As she stepped out of the bed, her legs gave way, and
she found that she could not walk. She did not cry for help, but
quietly laid down again. "I'll surely be able to walk when I feel
more composed," she thought. In a few moments she made another
attempt. This time, too, her legs failed her, and she fell prone on
the floor beside the bed.
In the morning, when people were astir in the house, the doctor was
called in. He was at a loss to understand what had come over Karin.
She did not appear to be ill, nor was she paralyzed. He was of the
opinion that her trouble had been brought on by fright.
"You'll soon be all right again," he assured her. Karin listened to
the doctor, but said nothing. She felt certain that Elof had been
in the room during the night, and that he was the cause of her
trouble. She also had the feeling that she would never recover from
this shock.
All that morning she sat up in bed, and brooded. She tried to
reason out why God had let this trial come upon her. She examined
her conscience thoroughly, but could not discover that she had
committed any special sin that merited such a terrible punishment.
"God is unjust to me," she thought.
In the afternoon she was taken to Storm's mission house, where at
that time a lay preacher named Dagson led the meetings. She hoped
that he could tell her why she had been punished in this way.
Dagson was a popular speaker, and never had he had so many hearers
as on that afternoon. My, but what a gathering of people down at
the mission house! And no one talked of anything but what had
happened in the night at Strong Ingmar's hut. The whole community
was in a state of terror, and had turned out in full force, in
order to hear the Word of God preached with a force that would
annihilate their fears. Hardly a quarter of the people could get
inside; but windows and doors were wide open, and Dagson had such a
powerful voice that he could be heard even by those on the outside.
Of course he knew what had occurred, and what the people wanted to
hear. He opened his address with a terror-striking word picture of
hell and the prince of darkness. He reminded them of the evil one
who skulks about in the dark to capture souls, who lays the snares
of sin and sets the traps of vice. The people shuddered. They
seemed to see a world full of devils, tempting and enticing them to
destruction. Everything was a sin and a danger. They were wandering
among pitfalls, hunted and tormented like the wild beasts of the
forest. When Dagson talked in this strain, his voice pierced the
room like a blasting wind, and his words were like tongues of fire.
All who heard Dagson's sermon likened it to a roaring torrent of
flame. With all this talk about demons and fire and smoke, they had
the same feeling as when trapped in a burning forest--when the fire
creeps along the moss upon which you are treading, and smoke clouds
fill the air you breathe, and the heat singes your hair, while the
roar of the fire fills your ears, and flying sparks set fire to
your clothing.
Thus did Dagson drive the people through flame and smoke and
desolation. They had fire in front of them, fire behind them, and
fire to left and right of them, and saw only destruction ahead of
them. Yet, after taking them through all these horrors, he finally
led them to a green spot in the forest, where it was peaceful and
cool and safe. In the centre of a flowery meadow sat Jesus, with
His arms outstretched toward the fleeing and hunted men and women
who cast themselves at His feet. Now all danger was past, and they
suffered no further distress nor persecution.
Dagson spoke as he himself felt. If he could only lay himself down
at Jesus' feet, a sense of great peace and serenity would come to
him, and he had no more fear of the snares of the world.
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