Introduction

Biography

Adolf was the son of black­smith Olof Hult, one of the ear­ly mem­bers of the Swed­ish co­lo­ny in Mo­line.

He gra­du­at­ed from Au­gus­ta­na Col­lege, Rock Island, Il­li­nois, in 1892, then earned his Ba­che­lor of Di­vi­ni­ty de­gree at Au­gus­ta­na Theo­lo­gic­al Se­mi­na­ry.

Ordained June 11, 1899, at the sy­no­di­cal meet­ing in St. Paul, Min­ne­so­ta, he be­came pas­tor of the Mes­si­ah Eng­lish Lu­ther­an Church in Lake View, Il­li­nois, where had served a year while a stu­dent. Dur­ing his pas­tor­ate, mem­ber­ship grew from 226 to ov­er 450, mak­ing it the third larg­est Eng­lish Lu­ther­an church in the Chi­ca­go area.

Hult pur­sued post­gra­du­ate stu­dies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chi­ca­go, and taught He­brew for a year at the Chi­ca­go Lu­ther­an Theo­lo­gic­al Se­mi­na­ry.

He con­trib­ut­ed nu­mer­ous ar­ti­cles to the Lu­theran press, and in 1905 was chief ed­it­or of I’äk­ta­ren, a re­li­gious pa­per pub­lished in Chi­ca­go. As of 1908, he was as­so­ci­ate ed­it­or of The Young Lu­ther­an’s Com­pan­ion, pub­lished se­mi-month­ly at Rock Is­land, Il­li­nois.

In May 1907, Hult be­came pas­tor of the Im­ma­nu­el Swed­ish Lu­ther­an Church in Oma­ha, Ne­bras­ka.