Here was a hospital, or rather an asylum for invalids, into which, on easy conditions, a poor body could get admission, and be kindly cared for at the expense of the state. Many of these institutions are scattered over the world, the fruit of Christianity, and when I find them in places where I least expect, they tell me that love works the same results everywhere. I soon found Dr. Stolberg, in a modest dwelling, in a garden retired from the street, and he received me with great courtesy and warmth. In Sweden a physician makes no charge whatever for medical attendance; and, what is more remarkable still, very many of the people who can afford to pay for the services of a doctor are willing to avail themselves of such aid without paying any thing for it. One physician told me that of ninety-six cases that he had treated within a certain time, only six paid him at all! It is customary for those who do pay to pay by the year, and fifty-six dollars, or about twelve American dollars, would be a large sum for persons in good circumstances to give for the benefit of a physician’s counsel for a whole year. There is, therefore, no great inducement, in the way of profit, to go into the medical profession. Nor is it an introduction to society, the physician not being in this respect materially above the apothecary in social standing. The clergy, as a profession, are not materially better off than the physicians. Their pay comes from the state, but their salaries are very small, and, with only here and there an exception, they have very little influence, social or political. They are not men of learning, and perhaps they are as influential as they could be expected to be. The established religion is Lutheran, with one archbishopric, eleven bishoprics, with 3,500 clergymen. They are said to be “highly educated,” but I was assured that there is a great lack of education among the clergy, and the very small salaries which even the dignitaries receive would confirm the statement that the church does not retain the aid of learned and able men. The press is free, and when a man is called to account for the abuse of this freedom, the case goes to a jury, whose action is final, and there is no appeal from it. Only one in a thousand of the population is ignorant of letters; they can read, and nearly all can write. A common laborer gets about twenty-seven cents of our money for a day’s work, and a mechanic at his trade earns a little more. The cost of living must be very little, where the working classes can support themselves and families on incomes so small as these! Yet they do live comfortably, and if it were not for drinking intoxicating liquors, they would be well off.