# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 11 12_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

47

It will not surprise you, dear readers, when you learn that the devil has devised murderous plots and has spoken, much as in the case of Job: "Hast thou not hedged about their houses and all that they have? But stretch out thine hand now, and touch their bone and their flesh; what wilt thou wager, they will bless thee to thy face?"

On the 29th of September three men, Peter Ninikasong, Samuel Beneswabe and Jacob Nackchigam, made ready for a journey after the service, in order to fetch a few necessaries in Saginaw. But since night overtook them, and because of the strong wind they were in danger of filling the boat, they resolved to pass the night near the river [illegible]. (At the place mentioned there lives a Frenchman, who trades with the Indians and sells a great deal of brandy among them.) There they found Nacktschigomä with others of his band drunk, (among whom was one who about eight days before had stood in the way of Brother Auch and me); but since they behaved very friendly toward these men, they suspected nothing evil; they asked the Frenchman's leave to pitch their tent by his hut, and lay down to sleep. But what happened? About midnight Nacktschigomä crept up near them and stabbed P. Ninikasong twice in the back of the head; the latter cried out at once for help with the words: "Naktschigomä wants to kill me!" His brother J. Nackchigam sprang up and, by God's providence, at once got hold of the knife which the assailant carried, else he would probably have stabbed him to death, which was also his intention. In the same time the other Indians carried away everything that the travellers had in their boat and hid it. Early in the morning, when the former wished to go on and S. Beneswabe opened the door of the hut mentioned above and asked for his coat, Naktschigomä had hidden himself behind it and stabbed him in the left cheek and in the right hand with the words: "I have long since resolved to stab you; I should like to see your Christ-blood. I think your preacher has the same. I do it on purpose." Others of his people encouraged him in his murderous lust, and cried: "That is right, Naktschigomä, stab these fellows." Yet none of them has been mortally wounded. When they came home again and told what had befallen them, men, women and children assembled with me in full consternation, to take counsel what was to be done.

This, dear friends of the mission, I have not written in order that you should pity your red brethren especially, (for one is not to be pitied for what one suffers for the name of JEsus), but in order that you should earnestly pray, and cry to God, for them and for us, who are ambassadors of Christ among them, that utterance may be given unto us, with joyful opening of the mouth to testify against the works of darkness, that the devil's bulwarks may be destroyed, his devices brought to naught, and, through your believing prayer and your love, many more souls held captive by the prince of darkness be set free and become a reward of the sufferings of JEsus.

Shiboyank, October 4. 1850.
J. F. Maier.

A Remarkable Prophecy of Luther Concerning Our Time, and Good Counsel Against the Heretics.

Concerning the glorious prophecy of the prophet Jeremiah (23, 6.) of Christ: "And this is his name whereby he shall be called: The LORD (Jehovah) our righteousness," the dear, highly enlightened instrument of God, Luther, writes, among other things, as follows:

"The Hebrew language has almost ten names by which it names God, among which many are such that by them it names God from His works. But this name Jehovah, LORD, signifies God alone, as He is in His divine being. In the second Book of Moses, chapter 22, v. 28, the judges are called Elohim, gods, by reason of their office, because they sit in God's stead, and are God's servants. Likewise all Christians also are called gods, as Christ cites it from the 82nd Psalm, v. 6, John 10, 34, when He spake to the Jews: 'Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?' But this word, Jehovah, thou wilt nowhere find applied to any other than to the divine Majesty alone. And therefore, when the Jews read this text here, they do not read Jehovah, but Adonai. So we Christians can confidently conclude from this saying of Jeremiah that Christ should be acknowledged as true and natural God.

Therefore let us mark this text well, when the heretics and sects shall arise and assail this article of our faith, that Christ is not true and natural God (as indeed this heresy will certainly yet come), so that we may be armed, and hold this saying before their noses, against which they will not easily be able to bring anything.

With such sure, strong sayings one must catch them, else they slip away from us and run through, as fishes slip through a net. It is a slippery thing, the heretics; one can hardly hold them, and they are frivolous in dealing with divine Scripture. The whole reason is that they carry their own conceit into the Scripture, and the Scripture must bend, bow and be turned according to their head and understanding.

Therefore we should hear God's Word with fear and deal with it with humility, and not blunder into it with our own conceit. Thou wouldst better fall into any sin than into thine own conceit, so dangerous and harmful a thing is it. For with God's Word there is no trifling. If thou canst not understand it, take off thy hat before it. It suffereth no jest, nor any human interpretation; but it is all plain earnest, and will be honored and kept. Therefore beware by all means that thou fall not into it with thy conceit. For if thou comest in with thy conceit, thou wilt lose thy footing, like our factious spirits, and not know whether thou art inside at the back or at the front, and it will be hard to advise thee. For when one falls into his conceit, one cannot easily help him out again. So it has also befallen the Jews; they could not perceive it, and cannot perceive it even to this day, that Christ is to be natural, true God. For they are hardened and the devil's captives, who holds them well kept in his power; with hearing ears they hear it not, and with seeing eyes they see it not, as Isaiah ch. 6, 10 has prophesied of them. So it has gone with all heretics: when the truth has been laid before them so clearly and plainly that they might have grasped it, yet they have neither seen it nor been willing to understand.

So also do all sects and factious spirits, as many as there are; they let themselves not be persuaded, though it stood never so plain in Scripture. Is not that the devil, that one neither hears nor sees what stands before his eyes? But that is what the 109th Psalm, v. 18, says: 'It is gone through them like oil through marrow and bones, and like water into their inward parts.' If thou hast drunk water, and it is turned in thee into flesh and blood, canst thou bring it out again? So also with the oil; when it has flowed in anywhere, one cannot easily get it out. So it goes also with factiousness and heresy, with our conceit: when this plague has taken root, the devil may pull it out, not I. Therefore St. Paul says well to Titus, ch. 3, 10: 'A man that is a backslider avoid, when he hath been once and again admonished, and know that such an one is perverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.' Therefore guard thyself against the sects. It is soon entered, but hardly to be escaped again. Believe me, thou canst not so easily come out again as thou camest in."

(Luther on Jer. 23, 5-8.)

(Contributed.)

8.

From the Song of Songs.

Behold! Behold, thou lovely bride,
How great is thy beauty!
Of water have I built thee up
With bright and joyful singing.

I know the hour right well,
When thou didst wake,
When I, full of my own blood,
Made thee alive.

When I washed thee, when I gave thee
The fairest bridal jewels,
When I fetched thee from the grave
With bitter pangs of death.

Therefore, beloved, art thou so fair,
Therefore thine eyes do sparkle,
And are so soft, and to behold
Like unto doves' eyes.

Where is the highest prize of beauty? --
That is, my Friend, in Him alone! --
Like cedars and cypress-sprays
Bloom children His so fair!
G. Schaller.

The Roman Church and Revolution.

That Popery, among other abominations, bears in its bosom also sedition and rebellion against the temporal authority ordained of God and confirmed in its highest power, the history of this antichristian kingdom has proved so clearly that no one can seriously deny it. Only the papists themselves are so shameless as to wish to dispute this fact away. Among others the late unhappy Oertel, editor of the Katholische Kirchenzei-