# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 09 15_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall pass away now and nevermore." (Rev. of John, Chap. 14, v. 6. 7.)
Published by the German Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Vol. 8.  St. Louis, Mo., September 15, 1851.  No. 2.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents.
Only those letters which contain communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent hither under the address Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

Preface.

Continuation.

Having now taken such a sorrowful survey and look about us, we would turn our eyes to the present situation and circumstances of our Church, first of all here in this country.

If we look first, then, within the circle of our Synod, we have indeed above all things cause to thank God for all the goodness and benefit which He has done to us. For He has given the older and already established congregations grace to grow up toward the stature of manhood in Christ, in the knowledge of the LORD Jesus Christ, in faith, in love, and in every fruit of the Spirit, so as, if God will, to set themselves as walls of brass against the ever more mightily inrushing flood of corruption (of which we spoke above), and to become to their younger sister congregations, also in such a conflict and in the confessing of the LORD Christ against the idolatrous and adulterous generation of these days, a powerful example.

And no less has the gracious God turned His [illegible] love also to these later-formed congregations, so that through the faithful service of His servants ever more souls have been converted from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that a sound foundation of faith has been laid in them; further, that others have been healed of the sickly pietistic-methodistic Christianity of feeling and brought to the sound Bible Christianity of the Lutheran Church; that to these, as to those, the dignity and power of the Scripture-true Confession and of the pure doctrine, as also the necessary connection between this and right churchly practice in life, in discipline, in worship and in government, shone ever more clearly; that finally the rest also received ever more wholesome impressions of the sole dominion and supremacy of the divine Word, whereby there was begotten partly a holy fear of boldly contradicting it, partly a willingness to submit to its doctrine and discipline.

Also in the course of this year several more congregations whose pastors already belonged to us have joined themselves as members to our Synodical union, after they had recognized the salutariness of such a union, not by way of outward persuasion but rather by inward conviction, and had lost all prejudices against the Synod chiefly through the faithful administration of the office by their pastors.

No less has the grace of the LORD presided kindly over our institutions of learning, preserved and increased in our dear students the right disposition, and so blessed us that, for example, in the course of this year 10 orthodox and well-qualified young brethren of blameless walk could be sent out from the seminary at Fort Wayne to the service of the Church, whereupon 10 new ones entered the seminary.

Yet along with such goodness and kindness of God, of which we have to boast undeservedly, we lacked on the other hand no occasion to humble ourselves wholesomely and to mourn heartily over many abuses, weaknesses and defects within our Synod. To this belongs, for example, the observation that even from the older and comparatively more mature congregations so few young men present themselves for the service of the Church; that from many of the younger congregations, which nevertheless are outwardly no longer in poor circumstances, relatively no particular helping hand is given toward the support of our churchly institutions of learning and of our mission work among the Indians in Michigan; that accordingly, despite all faithful instruction and admonition, in this and that congregation the inclination to the service of Mammon, so overpoweringly prevalent in this country, still shows itself strongly; finally, that even in the fully grown congregations there is no lack of many offenses in individual cases; for although these on the one hand are a testimony that the LORD has a great people in such a congregation, on which account the devil also busies himself there, and although they receive from the congregation, according to God's Word, the fitting rebuke, they are nevertheless once for all a cause of heartfelt sorrow and mourning.