# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 07 08_S183
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

183

lassung and returned home. To the Lord alone is it known what further consequences the whole matter will have. Br. Mylius, with whom I was of one heart and one soul, is a faithful, humble and upright servant of the Lord. His departure grieves me especially deeply. He is now on the way home. May the Lord there yet for a long time set him for rich blessing. (Incidentally I remark that Br. Mylius drew up the letter written by us two years ago to you brethren in North America.) — Although the circumstances are so little encouraging, the Lord has nevertheless shown us that we should not let our hope sink, in that He has opened to us a door also at Trichinopoly. There, namely, last month, September, several families separated from the English Church and attached themselves to us. Thus the Lord makes way and path, and gives to His Church one station after another to His praise. — At present, then, the following labourers are here: 1. in Tranquebar the brethren Cordes and Appelt; 2. in Poreiar, I; 3. in Majaweram Br. Ochs; 4. in Madras Br. Kremmer; 5. for Trichinopoly and Pudukotta Br. Wolff is appointed, but still lives in Tranquebar. — Since my return here in March 1845 until now, 566 persons out of the heathen have been added through holy Baptism to the congregation of the Lord here in Tranquebar and Poreiar, in our two churches. Of these I baptized 336; Br. Mylius 178; Br. Cordes 41; the blessed Brother Schmeißer 7; Br. Wolff 2; Br. Appelt 1; and Br. Kremmer 1. How many were baptized in Majaweram, Madras and Pudukotta I do not know exactly. There may, however, be about 150 persons. These are now indeed for the most part of the least in this world; the poor and wretched; the sick, lame, blind and lepers; as they are just met with on the highways and at the hedges; the helpless, who lie in their blood and do not despise the Helper. The world regards Him not; so much the more does the Lord regard them, and sets them for an ornament in His sanctuary.

How it otherwise looks here in India I need not exactly tell thee. It is here as everywhere in the world, where the Lord is taking the field against His enemies. The heathenism here is outlived and has no positive power of resistance; but so much the more negative. The people almost throughout worship only one god, and that is their belly; what pleases this they seek with all their might; what is contrary to this they avoid in every way. To the preaching of the Word they commonly listen, and acknowledge the truth of what is said also with the mouth; but remain after as before. That is a heart-rending lamentation! — To this comes then the mission-bustle of all possible sects; the insufferable scribbling in their newspapers and journals; the continual experimenting, and the like, by which they seek to keep sympathy alive, and by which they fundamentally only deceive themselves and others. In self-glorification the Scots of the so-called Free Church surpass all parties, and their Dr. Duff, now gone home, speaks with an arrogance about others, especially older faithful servants of God, which astonishes. Two years ago he came on his travels also hither and stayed one day here. I cannot say whether he saw or spoke with even one of our Christians, especially as he understands nothing of the language of the country. Nevertheless, when soon afterward in Calcutta he delivered a very showy address, he said among other things: Around Tranquebar there are 2000 native Christians; but spiritual life is not to be found among them. Would that this man would read what the Lord has said, Matthew 7, 1 — 5! — Measured and shrewd is the course of the High Church, which has the greatest advantage from the confusion of the sects, in that it gathers in what the others sow. We are a thorn in the eye to the High Churchmen, because they know very well that they have to do here with an adversary to whom they are not equal. We must therefore now go through very many evil reports, and must hear not at all seldom that they seek to alienate our congregation members from us by money, other promises and suspicions. So long, however, as we remain faithful in the confession of the truth, they will not attain their purpose.

You in North America have to do especially with Methodistical, Unionistic and such like abominations, as also with false brethren. — Mr. Steiner of Langenzenn I know well. About three years ago there came into my hands a circular letter of Dr. Barth in Calw to the Basel missionaries in India, in which the following communication stood: "Steiner has, in order to be able to marry his educated bride, gone over in America to the Reformed Church." Poor Steiner! thought I, and wrote on that account to Pastor Loschge in Langenzenn. He thought it might be a groundless rumour. But Dr. Barth must know the matter better. — Dumser, thine own rival, is, I believe, also from Bavaria, from Mkt. Steft. Those are lovable people, who slay thee behind thy back with the tongue, and then yet demand that thou shouldst be their good friend. — Thou hast surely also some years ago read in Pastor Löhe's Nordamerikanischen Nachrichten a letter from India to Dr. Barth and the elucidations upon it by Pastor Löhe. Missionary Lechler wrote it, also a pupil from the Basel institution. This good friend feigned friendship to our Brother Ochs to his very face, while he was writing in such a manner. Let us leave them to do as it so pleases them; they will reap neither before God nor men blessing and praise by it! — The position which Grabau and his adherents take toward you is distressing, since there is no doubt that among those congregations much churchly core and fidelity to the Confession is to be found.

I was myself for a little time in Prussia, began my official labours there among our Lutheran brethren, and have learned to know their struggle. They are faithful confessors; although it cannot be denied that the persecution suffered from the Unionists, and the manifold misjudgment experienced from those who stood with them on the same ground of confession, brought some angles into their views and begot not a little distrust. In Germany this is now gradually being smoothed out; those of the emigrants, on the other hand, who will no longer acknowledge any Lutheran Church outside themselves, entangle themselves the deeper, the more when their pastors have once got it into their heads that in them, and indeed only in them, the Church is personified. I believe also that it will be hard, before you could come to an agreement with Grabau; yet I will not despair of it.

The political and ecclesiastical troubles in which our dear fatherland is now involved are leading, in this time, no small number of Germans to America. How much the Church gains thereby, you will best perceive. The craving for freedom, unrestraint and licentiousness, the chiming in with the cry of those who say: Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us! is just what makes so many restless and fugitive, and chases them from one land to another. The Church certainly gains not much in extent through them, still less in inward strength, although out of them also many a one, after long hunting and chasing after a vain phantom, may at last find freedom in the Lord. All things must serve the Church of the Lord and His children for the best, and so surely also the late sad events in Germany, and the rent condition still prevailing there in political and ecclesiastical respects.

The communications which thou madest me about thy domestic and family circumstances have greatly rejoiced me, and I wish that the Lord may let thee enjoy the happiness granted thee for a long time in peace and quiet. Greet thy dear ones most heartily, though unknown to me. — As for myself, I can say to the praise of the Lord that through His grace since my being here I have had the joy of almost undisturbed health. In my house, on the other hand, the Lord has made me drain the cup of joy and of sorrow in the course of one year. On the 29th of November 1848 I was married and lived 11 months in a most happy wedlock. But on the 6th of November 1849 the Lord took my dear, precious wife, in her first confinement, together with our newborn little son, from my side again to Himself. My grief was great; the wound struck by the Lord cut deep; yet the Word of our God refreshed me in my misery. He makes