PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
of the students, and so successfully that he was constantly cheered by their affection, and he could say after his ten years' life with them that in all that time the King had never received a single bad report of them.
In 1703 this pleasant life at Upsal was interrupted, to Swedberg's entire surprise, by his receiving from the young King Charles XII an appointment as Bishop of Skara, whither he then removed and settled at Brunsbo. He was now fifty years old, and here he remained till his death at eighty-two, never until the last few years neglecting to officiate in public worship. He preached indefatigably from the Gospels and the Epistles, his sermons always flowing without any straining from the text; for, said he, "then God recognizes His own Word." But though always making the duties of his sacred office his chief care, the good bishop was a devoted husband and father. He had married in 1683 Sara Behm, of good family, her father long holding the same office later held by her son Emanuel, that of Assessor in the College of Mines. By a previous marriage to the then Dean of Upsal she had inherited a considerable fortune, which later proved
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