# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 01 21_S85
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

85

and is dispensed in his name, it takes place in the tavern amid dreadful scorn, and is repeated until the brandy is gone.

Two tendencies are noticeable which strive after the same goal; the one wants absolutely no religion, and says so openly; the other makes use of the Bible and of Christianity in order to destroy them.

The first tendency says: A revolution has begun which must put an end to all religions. Physical misery is the source of all religion; therefore the friends of the people can do nothing better than to work at the dissolution of the old world, which is still partly based upon religion. In the name of religion the men of reaction preach to the people submission and servile obedience, and that is contrary to the destiny of man; religion hinders progress, which is attained only by illegal ways. Christianity, the religion that has become universal, is a misguided attempt at satisfaction of the human life of happiness in a world that exists only in the imagination. The new philosophy (Feuerbach, Ruge) has entirely and altogether antiquated the old Adam, Christianity, and the belief in authority. Where this philosophy has passed into our flesh and blood, there one understands the new revolution which the new tendency will undeniably conjure up. Our age, more mature than the Christian one, requires another guidance, by itself. If help is to be given, there is therefore need of the "cautious" removal of Christianity from the consciousness of the people. Man alone is our God, our Judge, Redeemer; apart from man there is no salvation! Man is necessary to God, not God to man. It remains so: the belief in a living, personal God, God is the cornerstone of the whole worm-eaten society, and so long as man still hangs by even one thread of thought on heaven, there is no salvation on earth. Atheism, godlessness, even if it forms devils, makes truth its ally, and purifies its disciples by its fire.

This is the first tendency; the other is revolting! Here Christ is made an apostle of freedom and love, after whom a second Messiah is to come, greater than the first; there is talk of a kingdom of God, of a better world here below. — Christ is regarded only as the first democrat of Judea, the revolutionary of the whole world, who was nailed to the cross by the aristocracy. His sacrament also is held in regard, but how? Weitling cries: "No more with folded hands, with hanging head and kneeling, will we partake of the Lord's Supper, but sitting at great tables at the paschal lamb, with wine and bread, with milk, potatoes, meat and fish, will we enjoy it merrily together, one like another. — But the crucified and tormented must first rise from the night of the grave of fraud, of deception, of lies. Halloo! — out of your dark holes! Up, up, you sleepers! Three times already the cock has crowed; how often will ye yet deny your salvation?" — "What used to be called Christians is now called Communists." —

In practical consequence both tendencies meet. These heroes of freedom say it is not enough to strip off the yellowed leaves of Christianity and of faith, but that one must annihilate the old, in order to make room for human morality, the foundation of the future. "Because Christianity still haunts our time, no freedom dwells with you; the true striving after freedom begins only with atheism; man must first become wild again, that he may become something." — "Let him burst the menagerie cage in which he is led about as a marvel of tameness! — "May the Germans soon learn to use their fists." — "Voltaire and Diderot were not on our height; we are making giant strides on the road of atheism and of the overthrow of morality." "The day will come when great fires will be kindled with bank-notes, bills of exchange, testaments, tax-lists, leases and rent contracts, and bonds of debt." — "Not only the faith of the fathers, but their customs also must be overthrown." — Our ingrained customs are the firmest supports of the present system of tyranny. — To improve these customs, we must destroy them."

Therefore the activity of the clubs must be: democracy with all its consequences, — not merely attack upon the existing institutions of the state and of the church, but annihilation of all prevailing conceptions of religion, state and society, — the filling of men's minds with hatred against the existing conditions, in order to make them receptive for the revolution." "We are not able to conquer the world with raw iron in our fist; we must first make it morally dead, and then carry it to the grave." "Down with the aristocrats, down with the Pietists, down with religion, down with those who have servants."

So far the first part of the said correspondence. Before we communicate the continuation of it, we insert a passage from an essay which is found, under the heading "the next revolution," in the socialistic monthly, "Die Republik der Arbeiter," edited in New York by Wilhelm Weitling. The passage is as follows:

"Only after the removal of all inequalities of social conditions, only after the introduction of communistic socialism, is it possible for a people to manage its affairs in so easy a manner. So long as there are poor and rich, high and low, so long it is not possible . . . You want reform? Revolution? Anarchy? — You want everything else, only not the old conditions! Be assured, all this will come, and indeed a revolution such as the earth has not seen before. It cannot fail to come, if we write the recollections of the sufferings endured in our heart with glowing wrath, if with glowing wrath we let the old pictures of insane despair live again in us, and with the boiling gall of all outraged righteous feelings think of the hired traitors, of the deceivers, who in the hour of victory with honey-sweet words knew how to soothe us again to forbearance and quiet, and then with biting scorn to fetter us anew to the old conditions, to whom every falsehood, every hypocrisy was welcome as a means for what they strove to attain. It will come terribly, it will end terribly, if our memory remains true to itself, and gives free course to all the Furies of vengeance for the wrong suffered a thousand years for only a few weeks. This week will be called the time of the blood-red republic. With it comes the Dictatorship.*) Only this can complete the work of the revolution and found true democracy. But radical communistic socialism will make the journey round the earth or perish in the attempt. It can make no peace with the unequal. It will carry on a long war in its train, and a terrible bloodbath will accompany it. Besides, the tobacco-praising, smoking and chewing human race cannot in any case be brought to so mighty a reform. What does it matter whether they let us die slowly of unhealthy labor, of sorrow, vexation, grief and cares, of want or in the prisons, or whether they strike us dead. If we do not strike them dead, they must strike us dead and starve us to death, 'for the earth is overflowing with the swarming, countless race of the breadless.' Many good and capable men will, alas, perish in the process, many innocent be slain. Those are the usual misunderstandings. But just let them go on: we are indeed still enough! Our heads are innumerable, like the sand-grains of the desert!**) We cannot lose. Holy Marat***) pray for us! — — —"

*) By Dictatorship is understood the office of a man to whom in a republic, for a certain time, entirely unlimited power has been given to act and rule at will, in order that in times of great danger and confusion one will, against which there is no appeal, may be carried through, which could not be accomplished if many with their various opinions were able to rule.

**) In the July number of last year Mr. Weitling writes: "We now have, if all continues to go well, the prospect that by next autumn, united with the Americans (especially in Boston and Philadelphia), we shall form a compactly organized, united party of at least 100,000 men. With such a party, however, we shall carry through the next presidential election according to our wishes, and a party which becomes so strong carries through everything it thinks good.

***) This Marat, whom Mr. Weitling here invokes as the patron saint of the Socialists, was that monster, that bloodhound, who at the time of the French Revolution at the end of the last century publicly preached the robbery and plunder of the possessors, and among other things made the motion that, for the final radical carrying out of the revolution, 200,000 heads should be allowed to fall.