# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 12 10_S63
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

63

ted by this, that it says they wanted to bury the awakened maiden after all, etc. (supposedly all for her best). But with the burying of the maiden it is now once for all over, and although for the present she has no enviable lot (the parable designates her present situation by her dwelling in a stable), yet she will live on and grow strong and outlast her wicked guardians and relatives, though these may go on talking of her as of one deceased, and pretend to have her corpse in the coffin; it is with this relic, as with many another, nothing, but lies and deceit. The land where this story took place the reader knows without my naming it; he knows where the Union was introduced by cunning and force, where, however, thank God! the Lutheran Church is nevertheless not yet exterminated, even if for the present she may stay there only as a tolerated beggar-woman. Yet - the old God still lives! -

How does the parable please thee now, dear reader, when thou readest it once more after thou hast read my "interpreters"? I think it will please thee very well, as it does me. But I have put this parable into the Sunday Paper not only because it is beautiful and true, but also because we can learn much from it for our own church conditions. It is true there is as yet no talk of any Union among us, nor, God willing! will it come to that. But other thoughts, yet much worse than thoughts of Union, haunt the heads of many people, alas, also the heads of pastors; they want no confessional writings at all any more, and when one asks them about their faith, they answer nothing but: "I believe what stands in the Bible!" But if they are asked: "Well, what does stand in the Bible?" - then they will give no straight answer. A church without a confession is, however, an absurdity, and to take from a church her confession is to ruin her from the ground up; it is just as much as if one wished to take from a ship its flag, rudder, oars, sail and compass, or from a soldier his uniform and weapons. Such an intended confessionless church reminds one all too strongly of that boy who was asked: "What is thy name?" - Answer: "Like my father's!" - "What is thy father's name, then?" - "Like mine!" - Dost thou not perceive the nonsense and the deceit? Nonsense, because with the mere appeal to Scripture no man knows what I believe; deceit, because these people, for the sake of their daily bread, still wish to pass for Lutheran, although they actually are so no longer. No one is to be forced to remain Lutheran who does not wish it; everyone may believe what he will. But let no one expect of the Lutheran Church that she should let herself be cheated out of her confession through ignorance or hypocrisy, or tolerate in her midst people who want this, least of all as teachers and preachers. Such people are still worse than those in the parable, who after all wished to bury alive only their relatives, their wards; but these wish to bury alive their brothers and sisters, yea, their mother, and yet to bear the name of the murdered, yea, to boast of this murder of mother and sisters and brothers as a good and glorious work. Beware of such gravediggers, least of all go about yourself with such gravediggers' thoughts; and if they come with their gravediggers' work upon thee or upon thine: - defend thyself to the last drop of blood, and think and say: "They shall not have me!" And though their work should succeed for a time: - the LORD JESUS Christ, who raised again Jairus' little daughter on her deathbed, the young man at Nain in the coffin, Lazarus in the grave, who Himself on the third day, to the great terror of His enemies, came forth alive again from the grave, is the same yesterday and forever. Therefore fear not greatly this gravediggers' rabble, but watch, pray and fight against them; for the rest, let the dead bury their dead, with the living they will not succeed, and forget not that the LORD JESUS has said: "For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." (Matt. 24, 28.) For this carcase also the eagles will not fail to come.

(Sonntagsblatt, edited by Pastor Leydel in Nördlingen.)

Mission Intelligence.

Sibiwaing, Nov. 28, 1850.
Right Reverend Sir, President!

A heavy task has fallen to my lot from the LORD, to give you and our whole Synod news of the dreadful misfortune which befell our mission on the fifteenth of this month. Mr. Missionary Maier with another man, by name Haushahn, resident here, found their grave in Saginaw Bay on the said day. They set out from Sibiwaing on the 12th with the intention of fetching home winter provisions, and on the 15th, on the return trip from Lower Saginaw, started out with a favorable but very strong wind, and as it grew ever stronger, and moreover such a thick fog lay upon the water that one could look only a short distance ahead, they ran right upon the worst surf-line of the whole east side of Saginaw Bay, and were wrecked here, about half a mile from shore and six miles from Sibiwaing. Just as I was returning to Sibiwaing from Shiboyank, the residence of Mr. Missionary Maier, where in his absence I held divine service, I found a man at home with a little note from a trader, who with kind intent had taken the ship's cargo into safekeeping, which contained this message of horror. Mrs. Maier happened to be with us during her husband's absence and now received with us the tidings of her husband's misfortune. The scene of lamentation which followed I will not describe. The Lord, from whose hand the affliction came, comforted us also according to His great mercy. For this be to Him praise, glory and honor!

The next day I rode to the place and found it, as had been reported to me, the mast broken off from the vessel, the vessel itself overturned and the cargo scattered half a mile along the shore. Although I rode back and forth some eight miles along the shore, I found only Mr. Maier's cap driven ashore. How I felt then! The day after I went again to the scene of the disaster with our German settlers here, who showed themselves very self-sacrificing and sympathetic, and turned the vessel over in the water. After we had again sought long and in vain upon the water for the bodies, we returned home to Sibiwaing with the much-damaged cargo of flour.

I now suspended all further search until last Monday, the 25th; on which day I, in company with our interpreter, Mr. Maier's brother, who had come here on the news of his brother's death, and with another man, went again to the place. Two miles above the scene of the disaster, I and Mr. Maier's brother went ashore, and while the other men went on in an Indian boat, we searched along the shore. A coat of Mr. Maier's I found on the way, together with other small articles from the vessel. At last we came to the place where most of the flour had lain, and as I directed my eyes ahead, I saw Brother Maier before me on his face, his coat over his head, washed up by the water, lying on the shore in some four inches of water. Calling to his brother, I hastened thither. Ah, what a sight! We turned him over, his hands were washed snow-white, his face brown-red, his skull crushed in. Maier's brother lamented dreadfully; I sought to comfort him out of God's Word; - how I myself felt at heart, to see my brother-in-law thus before me, cannot be described. The other man also we found only sixty paces from Mr. Maier. We returned home. On the next day we buried them, and thus sowed the first seed-grains here in S. in the mission land, which await a blessed resurrection.

Mr. Missionary Maier was faithful in his calling. This testimony I can give him with a good conscience. He lived to his Lord in faith; and thus we have from God's unchangeable Word also the assurance that he died to the Lord also. His age he brought to 27 years, one month and 11 days.

A great breach is thereby made in our mission. Who will fill it? - Our Indian congregation is very sad. The chief said to me, when I comforted them with God's Word: "Yes, now we had a pastor among us, who proclaimed to us God's Word; I rejoiced heartily over it with my people; I thought soon to see myself put in a position to teach God's Word myself; but how does it look now? Night and darkness surround us again now, when I think of going to school. Yet I believe it, as you told us out of God's Word, that "to them that love God all things work together for good."" "-"

I have now, trusting in God's assistance, taken over Shiboyank again; every Sunday, and when the weather permits, also once in the week, I have promised to hold divine service there. Indian school I have also begun again. The Indians here together with some eight German families are my charge; so I have no hour left in which I do not see myself surrounded on all sides with work. Ah, how unfit I feel myself for this