# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1851 09 15_S12
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

12

ve the means to let our son study!

That may be. But it lies first of all with you, if you will fulfil the will of God and give ear to the call of the LORD, to bring your son with willing heart to the LORD, to announce to your preacher that you would gladly give your son to the Church and dedicate him to the ministry. God will then provide the means for him. You have then done your part and can be of quiet conscience. Only present your children first! —

But to be sure, you are not yet wholly at ease about it; the means still lie heavy on your hearts. And — we cannot deny it — on ours also! The question presses itself upon us again and again: where does the money come from? Rents from landed property, bequests, endowments and other sure revenues we do not have for our Seminary and College, as is the case with the universities and churchly institutions of learning in Germany. We are in truth poor; we can scarcely give our professors a quite small salary, to say nothing of giving the students free places. We hang and stand wholly upon the love of the congregations; if these have warm hearts and open hands, then preachers can be trained and assigned to the forsaken congregations. Therefore we will now also say a word to the congregations.

God has done great things for the congregations, has led them happily hither out of German distress, has blessed their earthly calling extraordinarily, has given them property, in part already prosperity, yes riches; yes still more: He has also cared quite especially for their souls, has given them preachers who mean it faithfully with them, who, even if amid much struggle, storm and contradiction, do not depart from the upright preaching of the almighty, eternal Word, who lay before their eyes the way to blessedness without human ordinance and opinion, simply, according to the Word, and who administer to them the holy Sacraments according to the institution of the LORD Christ. And although it is now not to be denied that by God's help the German sleep ever more yields, the eye of the spirit becomes awake and clearer, knowledge grows, faith breaks forth; yet the sincere wish and the urgent request cannot be suppressed: that gratitude and love might now also show themselves more lively, more active, and indeed in the chief work that love can carry on, namely, in the furtherance of the kingdom of God through the training of faithful preachers and teachers. —

Whence comes it, in general, that, a few older congregations excepted, so little on the whole is done for general churchly purposes, the support of churchly institutions of learning, the assistance of poor students, etc.? — Alas! it is a true affliction, the sorrowful fruit of the unhappy, enslaving churchly system of guardianship in the old German fatherland, which permitted no self-activity and participation of the congregations in the weal and woe of the whole Church as of its parts, that now the congregations also have lost the life and the love for the whole, now only look, at most, each one to its own way; if they have only cared for themselves tolerably in regard to church and school, they think they have done enough and to spare for the kingdom of God and for love of the same. The command of love of the Apostle, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others!" has not dawned upon them; the precious article "I believe in one holy Christian Church" lives only still in the mouth; and so the living, love-begetting consciousness is not present of being, as a member of the Christian Church, united most intimately, most brotherly together with all true believers, of standing with them on the great, dangerous battlefield of this world, heart to heart, in one faith, one hope, one longing, under one Captain and Prince of souls, in one battle, in the same joy and the same sorrow, each one for the individual as for the whole, wrestling with them, helping with them, suffering with them, praying with them. This faith has shrunk together into the narrow-hearted, love-empty, selfish consciousness of being, through a certain yearly money contribution, a member of a congregation and thereby an entitled participant in the church property. That is the real ground, the seat of the evil: the faith of the article on the Church is so weak, therefore also the love for the Church so faint, and the gifts for it so small. Ah, may God have mercy here! — You dear Lutheran congregations, shall we not then hold together, shall we not resist in common the devil, who rages through the world to scatter the flock of Christ? When the enemy approaches, the army gathers; shall we not join together before the hostile hosts of the unbelieving and the erring, and instead of that still go ever farther asunder? Shall we not, in these dangerous, dark times, when it is toward evening and the day is far spent, call to one another, encourage one another to common caution and watchfulness, common labor and perseverance? shall we not arise, pray, wrestle, that all selfishness, all indifference and coldness may vanish and we bind ourselves ever more closely together in love and confidence, so that by God's help we may become evermore one and strong, and so hold high and fast our pure Confession of faith, which our fathers in such hot battle first won again and fought out from God's Word, as our banner and our flag, and bear it courageously through every resistance, until we have at last delivered it unimpaired and unendangered to our children, as their best inheritance? But how can that happen otherwise than by our making it our first and most urgent concern to see to it that we and our children always have able, well-equipped preachers and teachers, pure in doctrine and faithful, and therefore earnestly support the institutions in which the preachers and teachers of our Church are trained? Should not every congregation be able to let at least one young man study voluntarily? — Ah, if it had faith and love, not one, but ten. Must not one family give for a farmhand yearly 100 Dollars and more, and should 30, 40, 50, 100 families not be able to give yearly 60 Dollars for the training of a young man*)? Yes! — but a farmhand earns something for me, a studying young man earns nothing for me, I have nothing from him, for him I give also nothing! O, the horrible darkness, the pitiable avarice, the shameful ingratitude toward God! People who talk so have no heart at all, no faith, not a spark of Christianity!

*) the yearly cost of maintenance at Fort Wayne, however — clothes and pocket money deducted — amounts to scarcely 30 Dollars.

Yearly people spend so much on the building and repair of houses, barns, fields, storehouses, etc., only that they may have temporal comfort, subsistence and good living, and should one not rather spend something on the support of poor youth, in order to maintain skilful men? — The prosperity of a congregation does not lie in this, that one gathers great treasures, builds fine houses, carries on great business, makes much gain; yes, where the goods are many, and the spirit of folly, pride and lust comes between, the harm and fall become so much the greater and worse; whereas this is the very richest prosperity and welfare, when through able, skilful preachers right knowledge, living faith and love are in vogue in a congregation. — But where shall one get preachers, since everywhere there is lack and complaint that able men are wanting? shall one wait until they grow of themselves, as Dr. Luther says; can we hew them out of stones and carve them out of wood? therefore we must now do our part and spare neither pains nor cost. — In Germany we had to pay taxes, under compulsion, also for the support of the Church; here it is not so, the Church has no help from the State, no one is compelled to give to it, to maintain its institutions, we are free here; shall we therefore now also give nothing, and be free from all fear of God, free from all gratitude, from all love? Did we come to America for this, to become here free, godless despisers of the LORD and of His Church? does God give us so richly earthly goods here for this, that we should lose our souls ever more in covetous avarice? No! dear, precious congregations of the LORD, you are brought over by God to America, to let the light of your pure faith shine here, to be here in the hand of God the salt against the general corruption, to help here in free, rich love, that God's kingdom may come and His name be hallowed!

So bring then, you parents, your sons