# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 11 26_S55
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

55

pastor somewhat inconvenient, if for a time, on account of the melody, he cannot have sung what suits his sermon best; but it can be done, and must be done, if anything is to be accomplished.

Naturally the melodies that have been practiced must be diligently repeated, for only practice makes the master.

"Yes," you say, "that may well work in the country and in small congregations, but in the city and with large congregations!" I grant that in some respects it goes more easily in the country and in small congregations than in the city and in larger congregations; but it is not impossible there either, if one has only good will, and does not set about the matter altogether clumsily. "Pleasure and love for a thing make all toil and labor light!" To be sure, "one stroke does not fell a tree;" patience and perseverance are needed, in the country as in the city; it will take decades until we again get a proper church singing. Besides, in cities one has many a help for this purpose which one lacks in the country. There are usually many friends of music there, church singing choirs, singing societies, Liedertafeln, etc., and other musicians also, who could play the chorales ahead and accompany them on their instruments (only not on fiddles and pipes, which simply do not belong in church) until they are learned (but by all means not longer!). All that one as a rule has not in the country. It depends only on properly using the musical powers present in a city, and on winning the people for the purpose one wishes to attain. If that were done, it would no longer be, as unfortunately it has often been hitherto, that the matter makes better progress in the country than in the city. That it does go in the city too, however, I see from the city in which I live.

Our Church has in her chorales a great treasure; she has already gladdened and comforted many souls with it; the Jesuits said of Luther that he had murdered more souls by his hymns than by his sermons (as they expressed it), that is, had won them for the pure doctrine, and so really brought them not to death but to life. Are we to lose this treasure, are we to have it only as under lock and key, for looking at under glass and frame, or even as old lumber in the junk room, but not for free and diligent use? That would be the case, however, if we could not sing our good old hymns at all, or not in the right manner. In Psalm 33, 3 it is said: "Sing unto the Lord a new song, play well upon the stringed instruments with a loud noise." That is a word which fits us also, and our church singing. We also wish to sing new songs, namely the old ones, which unfortunately have become new to us because they have so long no longer been sung. We have sung heartily badly long enough; it is time that we at last make it good again; but we make it good when we sing the hymns as they were originally written and set to music. To this I too have wished to contribute my mite here; I should be glad if it had not been done altogether in vain.

Description of the Pope and his Clergy by Petrarch.

Petrarch, one of the greatest and most celebrated poets of Italy, born 1304, died 1374, describes the papacy of his time with respect to faith and life, among other things, as follows: "You see here," in Avignon, where the Pope then resided, "you see here a people which is not only hostile to Christ, but even under Christ's banner rebels against Christ, serves Satan, and thirsting for Christ's blood says boldly: it is for us to speak, who is our lord? It is a hard-hearted, godless, haughty, greedy people; a people which betrays the LORD like Judas Iscariot; praises Christ's name day and night, and yet trades him away." "In this realm of avarice," he writes in another letter, "nothing is counted a loss, if only the money is safe. The hope of eternal life is a fable to them, and all that is told of hell; the resurrection of the flesh, the end of the world, the coming of Christ to judgment, they hold for foolery. Truth counts with them as folly, temperance as faint-heartedness, modesty as great disgrace; finally, bold sinning as a lofty mind and excellent freedom; the more shameful the life, the more brilliant, the more crimes, the more fame. I say nothing of the rapes, the robberies, the incest, the adulteries, which are now sport to papal wantonness." — "Shall I," it is said in a third place, "choose Babylon (Avignon) for my abode, to see how the good are oppressed and the wicked exalted, how the eagles creep and the asses fly, shall I see the wolves free, the lambs bound, Christ driven out, Antichrist as lord, Beelzebub as judge?" — So Petrarch describes that which the Roman hirelings call the "center of all Christian Catholic life"; a man who could write: "Visa loquor, non audita," that is, I speak of things which I have myself seen and do not know from hearsay. For the rest, one must not think that Petrarch on that account became doubtful of the religion of the Bible itself; yes, great as was this great poet's admiration with which he studied and used the old heathen classics, he nevertheless writes of these (the heathen classics): "They were men, learned so far as human research and knowledge of things reaches, also brilliant in eloquence, blessed with natural gifts, but to be pitied for lacking the highest and unspeakable good. Since they trusted in their powers, and did not seek the true light, they have often fallen after the manner of the blind. Let us admire their gifts of mind, but so that we revere the Creator of these gifts. Let us feel compassion for the errors of those men, but congratulate ourselves and acknowledge that we, by grace, without all our merit, were preferred to our forefathers by him who hid his mystery from the wise, but graciously revealed it to babes. Let us so philosophize that we love wisdom. The true wisdom of God, however, is Christ. To philosophize truly, we must above all love and honor him. Let us above all be Christians. Let us so read philosophical and poetical works and histories that Christ's Gospel may always be heard by the ears of our heart, by which alone we are sufficiently learned and happy, without which, however, we should be the more unlearned and wretched the more we have learned. Only upon the Gospel, as upon the sole unshakable foundation of all true knowledge, can human diligence build securely." Petrarch honored and loved Augustine above all the Church Fathers; his "Bekenntnisse" were among his favorite books.

Even before Petrarch the Italian poet Dante (died 1321), at least as great, had sung of the Popes:

"That the world is wicked through your avarice,
"The good sink down and the wicked rise.
"You shepherds the Evangelist had in mind
"Where she that sits upon the waves of the sea
"Presumes to commit fornication with kings." Rev. 17, 1-6.

And in particular Dante had introduced St. Peter speaking thus of Pope Boniface VIII.:

"He who on earth usurps my seat,
"My seat, my seat, on which no shepherd now watches
"Before Christ's face, for the protection of his flocks,
"Has made my burial place a sewer."

The New Pennsylvania Hymn Book.

A correspondent of the "Lutheran Standard," who signs himself "Hermann," seeks in the last numbers of that paper to prove that the criticism of the new Pennsylvania hymn book which appeared in the "Lutheraner" is an unjust one. Whether this is really so we may well calmly leave to the judgment of our readers. Whoever has a tender conscience for purity of doctrine and against all falsification of the Word of God, even the least (2 Cor. 4, 2.), needs no counter-criticism of ours after what has been set forth; but to him who lacks this tenderness of conscience our counter-testimony would appear only as foolishness and offence. We would therefore rather let it rest with our prayer that God would further and complete the good work of better knowledge which He has visibly begun in the synods where the hymn book in question has found entrance; when that is done, we shall soon give one another the hand also in judgment of the new hymn book, in brotherly agreement. Only one thing which Mr. "Hermann" states we cannot pass over in silence. He writes, namely, "it required a great measure of charity, which he was willing to exercise, to believe that the talk of our correspondent in the Lutheraner about the article of justification by faith was called forth by anything else or intended anything else than to awaken prejudices against the new hymn book and to promote the circulation of the hymn book of the Missouri Synod." If ever an unjust suspicion has been cast upon us, it is this, as if we traded with the divine truth and made a trade of godliness. May God forgive this to dear Mr. Hermann. We are glad to put this uncharitable side-blow of his down to the account of human weakness, which so easily lets itself be provoked, even the opponent also