While Gustavus was thus dickering with the Dalesmen, a far more weighty matter kept him continually on an anxious seat at home. This was the Reformation of the Romish Church. It has been already noted that the Swedish Reformation was a political revolt, and at its outset had but little connection with theological dispute. The conflagration that had raged in Germany since 1519 produced no immediate effect in Sweden, and it was not till the spring of 1523 that the Swedish prelates felt real dread of Martin Luther. The father of the Swedish Reformation was Olaus Petri, a blacksmith's son, of Örebro. From his earliest years this champion of Luther had been educated by a pious father for the Romish Church. His childhood had been passed amid the religious influence of a monastery in his native town. There, with his younger brother Laurentius, he had shared the daily routine of a monk. When a mere boy his father, little knowing the temptation to which his son would be exposed, had placed him in the University of Wittenberg, where he sat for some years at the feet of Luther. On his return to Sweden in 1519, he was appointed to give instructions in the Bible to the youth of Strengnäs. Though only twenty-two, he already showed such promise that within a year he was chosen deacon of Strengnäs, and placed at the head of the school belonging to the Chapter. The opportunity thus given him was great. The bishopric being vacant, the charge of things in Strengnäs fell upon Laurentius Andreæ, at the time archdeacon. Andreæ, though fifteen years his senior, was of a kindred spirit, and by a contemporary is described as a willing pupil of the young reformer. There can be no question that even at this period Petri was regarded as a man of strength. A portrait of him painted when still a youth shows in a marked degree the traits by which he was distinguished later. The face is full and round, with large, warm eyes twinkling with merriment, and a high, clear forehead, from which is thrown back a heavy mass of waving hair. The mouth is firm as adamant, and the sharp-cut lips and chin are eloquent of strength. Altogether, it is the picture of just the man that Petri afterward became,--a brilliant orator, daring, good-natured, and gifted with a generous supply of common-sense. Precisely how much Petri owed to Martin Luther we cannot know. It is not, however, likely that at first his teaching in Strengnäs differed materially from that inculcated by the Romish Church. At any rate, he taught four years before any serious complaint was made. The first to charge him with heresy was Bishop Brask. On the 7th of May, 1523, that much-enduring prelate wrote to a member of the Upsala Chapter that a certain person in Strengnäs had inflamed the people by preaching heresies; "and God knows," he added, "we are grieved enough to learn that he is not silenced." What these heresies preached by Petri were, appears from a polemic hurled at the young reformer by Brask's deacon.