# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 01 07_S78
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

78

keep, but would wish that the Lutheran brethren of the West, who so gladly let themselves be called Old Lutherans (?), would set us an example not only with the old Lutheran doctrine, but also with the old Lutheran life." Well, that we will do, as far as God gives grace; but look well to yourselves, ye "New Lutherans," that ye boast not too much of your piety, for there are complaints also against you, namely, that ye seek deceitfully to lead the true Lutherans away from the wholesome Word and the true doctrine of the Sacraments, and now and then to rend whole congregations asunder. etc. etc. Further it says in the same place: "But there we must hear that the "Old Lutheran brethren" themselves are not united, that especially in one city of the West (Buffalo or Milwaukie) they not only are at enmity among themselves, but also put one another under the ban." Further in the same place: "There are people of this kind who go more than a hundred miles to receive the Holy Supper, although they could have the same quite near at hand, in accordance with the doctrine of the Lutheran Church. But because the pastor wears no gown, and no crucifix stands on the altar, and no candles burn, it cannot be the right Supper." —

Well, it is most gratifying that such confession-true Lutherans are to be found in the West, to whom it is not a matter of indifference where they partake of the Sacrament of the Altar. The simple-minded correspondent is certainly much mistaken, however, when he thinks it is done only because of the outward usages and ceremonies, as, for instance, because of a gown, a crucifix, and the like. The Lutherans in the West, who live scattered in the bush, are without doubt better instructed, so that they well know that gown, crucifix and candles have nothing to do with the matter, but that the question is whether the confession is right; — although they will have no cause to reject the ceremonies of the Lutheran Church, especially since these are altogether matters of freedom. But such churches as the correspondent means are without doubt Unionist, New Lutheran, etc. That, however, the Lutherans living scattered in the West will not take the Sacrament among such, they have surely better ground for than the correspondent pretends. Those Lutherans who undertake such long journeys in order to receive the Sacrament of the Altar in their true Mother Church have certainly read what Luther writes in his letter to those at Frankfort on the Main in the year 1533:

"Therefore this is my faithful counsel, which I owe before God, both to you at Frankfort and wherever it is more needed: Whoever knows publicly of his pastor that he teaches Zwinglian (Reformed) doctrine, him shall he shun, and rather be without the Sacrament all his life long than receive it from him, yea, rather die thereover and suffer everything. But if his pastor be one of the double-tongued, who with his mouth professes that the body and blood of Christ are present and true in the Sacrament, and yet is suspected of selling in the sack, and meaning otherwise than the words sound, then go or send freely to him, and have him tell you plainly what that is which he reaches you with his hands and you receive with your mouth; setting aside for the present what one believes or does not believe in the heart, plainly asked, what hand and mouth here take hold of.

If it be an honest enthusiast who will deal with you sincerely, he will say to you thus: He reaches you mere bread and wine, whereby you are to think and believe the body of Christ; but if it be one of the jugglers who play under the little hat, he will say Mum, Mum, and will throw the pap about in his mouth and so drivel: Ah, it is enough that you believe the body which Christ means. That is called well answered, and giving account of the hope that is in us, as St. Peter teaches. Such preachers, if they must jest, should undertake something else and leave divine things in peace, lest the thunder strike in upon them one day. For what is that dreadful juggling-play, in which they would teach the people and yet tell them nothing, but point them into the dark hole, and say, believe what Christ means; but what Christ means they will not say, for they fear that if they should say it, all the world would say, that Christ does not mean, but you yourself mean it, and your father the devil with you, and both of you use the name of Christ as a cloak of shame over your lying, that you may seduce and destroy us."

In the same place Luther writes further: "Turks and Jews are much better, who deny our Sacrament and openly confess it, for thereby we remain undeceived by them and fall into no idolatry. But these fellows must be the true, high arch-devils, who give me mere bread and wine, and would have nothing held for the body and blood of Christ, and so miserably deceive. That would be too hot and too hard; God will smite in upon them shortly. Therefore whoever has such preachers, or expects such things of them, let him be warned against them as against the devil in the flesh himself." Thus far Dr. Martin Luther's own words. —

But I hasten to the close and say only this: it may well be the case now and then that it fares with many a one as with that king who in the desert, in burning thirst, drank unclean water, and his thirst was quenched. But that king would not have drunk of the unclean water if he had found a purer or wholly pure spring beside it. So be then also thou a kingly man, and refresh thyself at the purest, yea, pure spring of the St. Louis hymn-book; for therein we find the very same hymns which our grandmother already sang before us, and many a one who at present does not yet harmonize with us might perhaps later come to the same conviction. God grant it! —

***

That Was the Finger of God.

On the 29th of April 1848 a thunderstorm passed over Altheim, in the district of Windsheim, at the outbreak of which a journeyman carpenter working there, from J......, betook himself with cursing into the shepherd's house, and even there did not cease to utter oaths. Then he said, among other things, after a violent thunderclap, again blaspheming: "Hear how he up there is rumbling about," whereupon one of those present rebuked him for such blasphemous speeches, adding: "I would not like to be in your skin." But scarcely had these words been spoken when a flash of lightning came down and so struck the journeyman, who sat leaning backward against a window on the bench, that his head at once hung out through the shattered window and his hair fluttered about in the wind. Made attentive by this, the neighbors hastened into the house and found the journeyman dead, while of all the four or five persons present, who lay stunned upon the floor, not one was wounded, although the stove about which they sat was shattered into a thousand pieces, and from a girl even the shoe was torn from her feet. The house itself was fearfully ruined, a part of the roof being wholly stripped off, and the chimney, half collapsed, lay scattered at a great distance. On the other hand, the sheep-barn, although its roof formed one with that of the shepherd's house, and below only a narrow passage separates the two, was quite undamaged, and of the 3000 sheep therein not one was hurt. (Sonntagsblatt.)

"Be not deceived, God is not mocked!"

In the city of A. there lived about 4 years ago a person who, because of his frivolous and disorderly manner of life, stood in ill repute.

He was especially so much addicted to idleness and the vice of drunkenness that every day he left the tavern only at midnight in a condition deprived of all his senses. The remaining hours of the night he spent in a barn, since he was received into no house.

For a long time this barn served him as nightly shelter and bed. When on one occasion he was accused by the owner of it of having stolen a farming implement which was in this barn, he denied it; and when he was not believed, he confirmed his denial still further with the words: "May I become blind if I have stolen anything from you."

And behold! only a few weeks passed, and the Lord punished him, and let him go blind in one eye without any known cause. Oh that through this bodily blindness his spiri-