Each of the three peninsular kingdoms of Northern Europe has an established Lutheran church, administered by bishops, which holds still the great majority of the people. Toleration has been generally practiced for a half century, the sole exception being the ban against Jesuits in Norway.[267] Of all the Protestant churches, none is more rigidly orthodox than the Lutheran, none is more unwilling to admit changes in its traditional creed; only a few years ago, the Norwegian Synod in America re-affirmed its belief in the literal inspiration of the Bible. Yet in spite of this conservatism, the Lutherans settled in the United States have invariably rejected the episcopal form of government, and have organized upon a more or less democratic basis. No matter how loyal they were to the Establishment in the Old World, a bishop has not appeared to be necessary to their happiness or salvation in the New. The Lutheran Church proper has kept within its folds a much larger percentage of Swedes than of Norwegians in the United States, the characteristic independence of the latter leading many of them even farther than mere separation from the mother-church. The persistence of the centrifugal force of dissent shows itself again and again in the violent polemics and divisions which have marked the course of Norwegian church history in America.[268] While this divisiveness may in some degree be due to the fashion set by the early settlers of whom many were dissenters, probably the deeper cause is to be found in the general freedom from religious restriction and prescription which characterizes the whole United States and especially the West. [267] _The Statesman's Year Book, 1900_, 491, 1048, 1062. [268] Gjerset, "_The United Norwegian Lutheran Church_," in Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, I, 229-242. Even the more extreme sects, in regard to belief and practice, have been recruited from among the Scandinavians both before and since their coming to this country. The Mormons were early at work as missionaries in Northern Europe and, as has been stated above, won many converts, particularly in Denmark, from whose immigration Utah mainly profited. In 1900 Utah had a total foreign-born population of 53,777, of whom 9132 were Danes; 7025, Swedes; and 2128, Norwegians. The real result of the missionary work, however, is better seen in the figures for persons having both parents born in a specified country and residing in Utah in 1900: Danes, 18,963; Swedes, 12,047; Norwegians, 3,466; total, 34,476.[269]