# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 10 29_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

35

roaring of the sea, nor finally by the din and shouting of the sailors, in their edifying meditations.

Thus, I mean, in this apostolic manner they carried the precious seed of the divine Word out into the heathen world. There, however, they carried it about with them at all times and scattered it abroad in season and out of season, scattered it along the hedges and fences, before palaces and huts, into the heart of princes and of beggars, and gave an answer to every man that asked of them a reason, or even only wished to hear, of the hope that was in them. Their chief care, however, was next directed to translating the divine Word into the languages of the heathen there, and so to lay down for ever the precious seed which they had carried out into the barns of the Tamil people itself. Yes, it was not long before 347 of our beautiful church hymns, which are indeed full of the kernel and marrow of the divine Word, were translated into Tamil (so the heathen language there is called). What a precious seed lies hidden slumbering in them, the heathen themselves, as such, seem sometimes to feel in their hearts. Our missionaries at least tell us a very lovely story in this connection. I will repeat it here for those who do not yet read our missionary paper.

One day, namely, — and it is only a couple of years ago, — an Indian penitent came to an English missionary and recited in the course of the conversation the first verse of the beautiful, bell-clear hymn, blown through by the spring morning air of the last day: "Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme Der Wächter sehr hoch auf der Zinne, Wach auf du Stadt Jerusalem, etc." The astonished missionary asked whence he had this lovely verse. Oh, answered the heathen, I have a book, "the Heart-Melter," which contains many such beautiful verses. The missionary, to whom no book under this title was known, wished to see it. Then the old man carefully brings out the carefully wrapped book, kisses it reverently and lays it in the hands of the missionary. And what was it? An old Tranquebar Evang. Luth. hymnbook, from which the title page was missing and to which the Hindu had given the name "Heart-Melter," evidently because he must have experienced something of the heart-melting power of its contents. Thus, they went forth and wept and bore precious seed in word and in writing — and behold:

IV. They came with rejoicing and brought their sheaves.

And that is now the last fundamental stroke in our picture. We can be brief here. The English Church, which in a part of its members greeted with sincere joy the first Evang. Lutheran mission efforts in East India and for a time also supported them with great zeal, gives the Tranquebar Mission the best testimony in this respect, saying: "However small at any time the number of laborers in this mission and however limited its sphere of action was, it has nevertheless borne the most glorious fruits on Indian soil. No fewer than fifteen to twenty thousand souls are now connected with this mission as Christian congregations." And the Evangelical missionary Taylor, in a work published a short time ago at Madras, speaks of our old missionaries as "ice-breakers," to whom the more recent missionaries in East India owe almost everything, and speaks of the sweet balsam fragrance which still ever clings about their names, although their bones have long since moldered, among the Christians and heathen there. What wonder? They went forth and wept, — wept the most balsamic tears of Christian love, Christian zeal, Christian patience, — and bore the most precious seed, the seed of the divine Word, a savor of life unto life, and when the Lord said: Enter ye, good and faithful servants, into the joy of your lord! so they came with rejoicing and brought their thousand and thousand sheaves full of heavenly harvest-fragrance. What wonder that sweet savor still ever hovers about their names! The memory of the just is blessed.

And this mission now, upon which the tears and the prayers of these just rest, we may, through the grace of the Lord of all lords, and humanly speaking through the favor of the departed king of Denmark, call our own. Should we not then break out with trembling joy into the exclamation: "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." Thither, then, our missionaries also have for the most part gone, the first about 10 years ago; eight others have followed him since, of whom one has already, after the short burden and heat of the day, laid the seed out of his hands and taken his sheaves, and has entered into the joy of his Lord. But, quite apart from the last case, which is most lamentable to ourselves (for the Lord called home in the departed one a very able laborer), — of our mission also it has in part had to be said: They go forth and weep.

(Conclusion follows.)

(Sent in for the Lutheraner.)

The Hymn-Books.

(Continuation.)

Dear Andreas!

It is indeed a wonderful thing that, when one takes a look into the confusion of present-day sectarianism, one always finds the doctrine of works coupled with the profanation and contempt of the holy Sacraments; the American tracts in their various shadings furnish the proof of this in particular. Yes, often and much must even old venerable men of God have their names made the cover of shame for such false doctrines, and even under the name and signboard "Lutheran" one seeks in this day to sell such false wares. It is as clear as day and known to all the world how precisely here in America many of them sail under a foreign flag, I mean, call themselves "Lutheran," and under such a semblance seek to deliver erroneous, namely Reformed, goods to the Lutheran people. And of this the "new Pennsylvania Hymn-Book" also is not free, for there one finds to one's greatest astonishment, under the rubric: "the Lord's Supper," several hymns by Reformed authors, which hymns also contain only Reformed doctrine of the Sacrament of the Altar. See there, among others, hymn No. 305, where you find the name "Lavater" subscribed, and in the hymn accordingly also nothing further than the Zwinglian view of the Sacrament of the Altar; in the first verse there it is only a question of "the new covenant's meal," in the seventh verse of "pledge of Christ's death and life" and "seal of our salvation"; of the eating and drinking of the true body and blood of Christ there is likewise not a word to be found. (Yet perhaps it did not rhyme better!) At No. 314 you find the name "Zollikofer," likewise a Reformed hymn writer, and here also again only the genuine Reformed doctrine of the Sacrament of the Altar is expressed. Verse two reads expressly: Happy am I, to me thy bread was broken, I drank, Lord, of the wine of thy covenant." Verse three reads: "Let me with thankfulness measure what thou hast done for my soul. Verse five, again: "We ate here of one bread, we drank here of one wine." In this hymn there is no mention of anything but eating "bread" and drinking "wine," which is surely not Lutheran, but quite genuinely Zwinglian-Reformed; this is not even Crypto- (that is, veiled) Calvinism, but straight out the Zwinglian view. Even the Mercersburg Reformed would not agree with that, who, as is well known, at least do not deny that the believers in the Lord's Supper with faith spiritually eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, and as the Heidelberg Catechism says to it: "by the working of the Holy Ghost, notwithstanding indeed that Christ "according to His human nature is in heaven and we on earth," of which, however, the Holy Scripture also says nothing, and which indeed is also spun out of reason. That now in the new Pennsylvania Hymn-Book — which yet bears the name "Lutheran," and indeed "of the Lutheran Church in the United States" — Reformed Communion hymns are contained is not only very strange, but to a true Lutheran highly suspicious; it might seem from this as if the Lutheran Church were too poor in hymns of this kind full of substance, so that she still needed to borrow Communion hymns from the Reformed: but the old hymn-books, which are still to be found here and there in this country among immigrated German Lutherans, such as the old Dresden, the old Marburg, the old Silesian, the Pomeranian, Prussian, Hamburg, Baireuth, etc., show sufficiently that a great store of old pure Communion hymns, which contain the doctrine of the Lutheran Church, is at hand; and whoever may have no such old hymn-book in his possession could convince himself sufficiently of it from the "Lutheran St. Louis Hymn-Book." Therefore it must be most striking to every impartial person who examines the "new Pennsylvania Hymn-Book" a little, when he perceives the Reformed Communion hymns that are to be found there; and what true Lutheran, I say again, should not be filled with distrust toward this "New-Lutheran Hymn-Book"? Is it not indeed almost a disgrace for the Lutheran Church, which precisely in the article of the Sacrament of the Altar is so decidedly from all