# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 02 04_S92
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

92

tion of congregations, and in every such congregation will let it begin only with a select number of members, in order that from these single beginnings the whole body may gradually be seized and leavened."

Signs of the Times.

(Continuation.)

We cannot refrain from communicating to our readers the continuation of that correspondence which is found in the latest numbers of the "Zuschauer am Potomac," and of which we already gave the beginning in the last number of the "Lutheraner." It reads as follows:

The decay of religion in Germany described in my last letter could not fail to exert its influence also upon the Germans in the United States. Already for the last fifteen years congregations have been formed here which threw down the gauntlet to "blind faith in authority" and to "priestcraft," in order to help "Reason to her right. The "Lichtfreund," "Antipfaff" and the "Fackel" were the leading periodicals of this movement; Ginal and Försch the most prominent personalities. Although many political periodicals here and there gave signs of favoring this tendency, yet self-interest was sufficient to keep them within bounds, since public opinion declared itself all too plainly against it, and one did not like to lose one's subscribers. In consequence of the political upheavals which took place in Germany in the year 1848, a number of political refugees arrived here, who gave the antireligious tendency a new impetus, and as editors of the most influential newspapers, the direction of which was entrusted to them on account of their literary reputation, they have now formally organized this tendency. Now they strive no longer merely to overthrow "blind faith in authority" and "priestcraft" and to help "Reason" to her right, but all relations of human society, of the family and of the State, are to be totally transformed. The faith in God is to be rooted out, property abolished, marriage done away. All this one hopes to attain through the workingmen's societies, which have been transplanted hither from Germany and whose pretended aim is irreproachable. They are a voluntary association; they seek general and industrial improvement, moral strengthening and social cheer, of which they stand in need, and wish to procure them for one another in fellowship. They aim at brotherhood and mutual support. All this would be irreproachable; but they do not stop there; over God and Christ, over Church and religion it goes on to the battle against property, family, marriage and morality. The president of the Workingmen's Congress, which was lately held in Philadelphia, Mr. Rosenthal, has declared in the Sunday paper "Wilde Rosen" published by him: "I am an atheist! As such I deny the existence of a being from whom all that is and is not is supposed to proceed, and which is commonly designated by the name God.

Let us now cast a glance at the "workingmen's societies" in Germany, after whose pattern the German workingmen's societies in the United States arose, in order to learn to understand toward what goal they strive.

The central organ of the workingmen's societies in Germany is "die Verbrüderung." In this periodical the speeches of Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Fröbel and Robespierre stand always at the head. It cries in one of its numbers: "The servants of the Church ally themselves with the howlers of the State, because the vital interest of both is the same: both speculate upon the oppression of free human dignity. They want to rob the people of the earth, and therefore point them with assignats to heaven; they keep them with satanic cunning in the contrition required for blind churchly faith, while they let them dwindle bodily. Therefore the priests, in their well-understood interest, have always held with the minority, with princes and nobility, against the people and its material redemption from oppression and misery.

In an assembly a speaker expressed himself as follows: "Feuerbach has taught us to transfer into ourselves, and to look upon in ourselves, the spiritual God whom we picture as existing outside of us, separated from us. So also we will not let the material god of the world, Mammon, exist outside of us, over against us, but will take him up into ourselves. - In an eternal life, in recompense up yonder, we do not hope, as long as it does not grow better down here: - The wanting to be better off up yonder has been invented by egoism and by greed. - When the pastor says consolingly: Up yonder it will be requited! - or: The dear God will help! - We - do not wait, will not rely upon that."

Another voice cries: "Religion is indifferent or hostile toward truth, so far as this does not serve its interest, the equilibrium of the soul. - True doubt does not return to faith, but proceeds to action. - What criticism has destroyed, thou findest again in the world, which is a worthy object of love. - That is the love of the new democracy. - There is nothing absolute."

Feuerbach, who wished to redeem the German nation from the delusion of religion, was railed at as a priest who still preaches an idol, the love of man; this religion, it was said, must be annihilated by egoism.

These views live and move in Germany not in books, but are already sung in the streets and in taverns. Thus in the Weaver's Song, which is sung by thousands in many hostels, on the highways and in many societies, the winding-sheet of Old Germany is woven. Three curses are woven in. The first curse is for the "King of the Rich"; the two others run thus:

Curse on the God, the blind, the deaf,
To whom we prayed in vain in faith,
On whom we hoped in vain and waited,
He has mocked us, he has fooled us.
We weave! we weave!

Curse on the wretched fatherland,
In which our inheritance is only misery and shame.
Old Germany! we weave thy winding-sheet,
We weave therein the threefold curse!
We weave! we weave!

From what has just been communicated it appears plainly that the workingmen's movement in Germany intends the overthrow of religion. God and fatherland, the two holiest conceptions, one seeks to shatter! Yea, to accomplish this the sublime art of poetry must be dragged down into the mire and made the bearer of the most dreadful blasphemy. Thus sings Titus Ulrich in his Hohenlied:

"I am too proud
To console myself with thee,
With thee, whom they call trembling,
The Lord, - the Almighty!
How true are the words of the poet:
What in the horror of the maddest frenzy
From mob-lips never has resounded:
A German poet spoke it out,
A German poet has sung it."

The workingmen's movement in Germany seeks, however, also to abolish the rights of property. One of its organs parodies the history of creation thus:

"In the beginning was Property, and it created heaven and earth, sheep, calves and lambs, and men, and said to man: thou shalt be subject to me, for I am Property."

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread - so it is written. This saying some sharper has doubtless devised, and now one makes us believe it is a divine utterance.

The Communist Born cries: "Shame on those who tell you that there must be rich and poor, because God has so willed. Yea, the pulse-beat of your heart tells you that faith is a lie. Enjoyment, and again enjoyment, is what lives in every drop of blood and drives to activity, to action."

"The interests of the propertyless are opposed to the interests of the possessors. The ruling idea of the present society is selfishness; its watchword: Every man for himself, every man against all! - Not equal distribution of goods do we want, no! For if private acquisition is retained, the old condition renews itself after few years, through the speculation of the covetous and the cunning. We want organization of the workers