the execution and its message demned was questioned.237 A quite new order had been drawn up by the City Chapter of Stockholm for the proposed Ritual of 1793, and with only minor changes it was included in the new Ritual.238 One formal difference was that the Ritual of 1693 had written texts to be read aloud according to the circumstances, while the new Ritual had only directions. In the 1693 version, a short service was to be held at the execution, with all present counselled by the priest followed by prayers and singing, while in 1793 the only instruction was for the priest to console the condemned. The same was true of 1811, although now there was no requirement for the priest to accompany the condemned to the scaffold.239 Although it seems to have occurred that some priests only accompanied the condemned on their journey to the scaffold and left before the execution, the presence had been legally presupposed since 1723 and during the eighteenth and nineteenth century the task was moved from the parish priests to the chaplains at gaols and prisons.240 In a speech preparing three delinquents for their last communion in the church of Dalby in 1803, Anders Hylander, a professor at the university of Lund and also rector of the parish, warned that the penitent thief forgiven at Golgotha should not be taken as a sign that the sinner could be easily forgiven. Rather, the further one had fallen, the harder it is to rise again. By making this criminal the only biblical example the Holy Spirit also wants us to understand that this path is not easy. The delinquents having cried so much in prison being despaired, lost their sleep, and confessed. The road passing the execution site is not the fastest to heaven. Hylander stated that the delinquents are saved, but through fire, being both a horrible detour and the result of the immense mercy of 237 P 414 22 August 1792AI:24ÅDARAÅ(notes by Jacob Tengström), p 949 § 13 10 November 1792, p 986 f § 10 14 November 1792 Ca:57BDARAH, Magnus Jacob Alopaeus draft Pro memoria år 1792. – 9 Nov. inlemnat til consistorium in coll. 8.36, Alopaeus samling, HNB, Johan Carl Morells Anmärkningar öfver Den Evangeliska Kyrkans Rituale eller Handbok på Hög Befallning samlade och framgifne å Kongl Hof-Consistori vägnar EII:15 HKASSA(noted as received for keeping 22 February 1793). 238 Förslag 1793 the preface and p 84 sqq, Kyrko-Handbok 1810 p 126 sqq. 239 Hand-Bok 1772 p 186 sqq, Förslag 1793 p 87 sq, Kyrko-Handbok 1810 p 130. 240 Bergman 1996 p 107, 126 sq, 134 sqq. 82
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