# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 01 20_S83
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

83

man of God, to learn from him to understand the Bible, and if she would give him no horse, he would run after him on foot. Since the abbess recognized in this impulse a divine call, she let him go with him, and Winfrid formed of him a blessed instrument, for after the death of his teacher he completed the conversion of the Frisians.

Winfrid now turned to the Hessians, who, farthest into the Christian lands, had still remained heathen, and first planted the cross in the region of Amöneburg. Thousands bowed in a short time before the power of the divine Word. Two whole tribes with their princes he received by Baptism into the Christian communion, and for the strengthening of the faith among them founded a cloister, in which he left several helpers, the first in Germany on this side of the Rhine. Amid unspeakable hardships, in constant struggle with want and distress and dangers of every kind, he pressed through the wildernesses to the borders of the most obstinate heathen, the Saxons, in what is now Brunswick, Hanover, and Westphalia, over beyond the Weser, and strewed here the first seed-grains of the divine Word. These brilliant successes drew the eye of the Pope still more upon him, and he invited him to a second conference with him at Rome.

Thither Winfrid accordingly betook himself in the following year, 723, and this journey became decisive for the whole future of the Church in Germany. Gregory II., namely, consecrated the capable man a bishop, in order to lend him more authority, and his work more emphasis. But beforehand he had him swear the following oath: In the name of God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I, Bonifacius, by the grace of God bishop, promise to thee, blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and to thy blessed vicegerent Pope Gregorius and his successors, by the Father and Son and Holy Ghost, the indivisible Trinity, and by this thy most sacred body: that I will keep all fidelity to the holy Catholic faith, and in the unity of this faith, with God's help, persevere, in which all the salvation of Christians rests, consent to no one's counsel against the unity of the universal Church, but render all fidelity and support to thee and to the best interest of thy Church, to which the power to bind and to loose is given by God the Lord, and to thy aforenamed vicegerent and his successors. But also if I learn that prelates of the Church walk contrary to the ancient ordinances of the holy Fathers, I will have no fellowship or connection with them, but will, to the utmost of my power, restrain them, and where I cannot do that, will faithfully report it at once to my apostolic lord. Should I, contrary to this my vow, which be far from me, do or attempt to do anything, I will be found guilty at the eternal judgment and suffer the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, who likewise sought to defraud concerning property. This oath-testimony I, Bonifacius, a lowly bishop, have written with my own hand and laid upon the most sacred body of the holy Peter, and, God being witness and judge, have sworn an oath, which I also promise to keep.

For the direction of his conduct the new bishop Bonifacius received a little book in which the ordinances, rights and customs of the Pope and of the Roman Church were written down, for these were henceforth to be brought into force also in Germany. So Bonifacius became the instrument for binding the German Church to Rome for 800 years, whereas before it had existed more as a national church without outward connection with the Pope. Whether Pope Gregory II. in this had wholly honestly and sincerely in view the best interest of the Church and the honor of the Lord Jesus, or whether lust of dominion and zeal for the papal chair also mingled in, only the Searcher of hearts can decide. So much is certain, that Bonifacius sought nothing for himself by it, but held the attachment of the German Church to Rome necessary to its prosperity. He shared with the whole Christendom of that time the firm conviction that the unity of the Church must also exhibit itself outwardly in its constitution, and believed with all Western Christians that Peter was set by Christ Himself as head of His Church, and the Roman Popes were appointed his successors. He also held such a subordination of the German Church under the bishop of Rome, especially in view of the young age of the evangelical plantings and of the rudeness and wildness of the German tribes, to be beneficial to the prosperity of the German Church itself. By his papal authority Winfrid gained in Germany influence for the establishment of a settled ecclesiastical order, and by the subordination under the Roman see he brought it about that his institutions did not fall to ruin again after his death for want of oversight and direction. The error that this outward unity of the Church in the form of a kingdom is necessary to salvation and ordained by God bore its bitter fruits only later. Winfrid himself was still so far removed from blind submission to the Pope that he did not shrink from making earnest remonstrances to him where he did wrong.

Altogether our Winfrid, to speak of this at once here, has nothing at all of a gloomy monkish spirit, even if many cannot think otherwise of that time. Although he had entered the service of the Roman see, he remained, according to the testimony of his correspondence, in his spiritual life rooted in the soil of his native land, and although hindered by unceasing activity from seeing his England again, as he often purposed, he remained devoted to it in fervent love. Not merely gifts of money and presents of altar-cloths and holy vessels for his churches, as well as clothing for himself and his assistants, did he receive from thence as love-gifts; very often he also begged for portions of the Holy Scripture and other books, likewise counsel and comfort for the difficult situations into which he frequently fell, and the highest value he laid upon mutual intercession and the lovely spiritual communion in which he stood with many believers in England. A living, pure, evangelical spirit shines upon us from his correspondence. An abbess Bugga writes to him from England that she thanks God daily for his happy successes, that her love for him never cools, since by the help of his intercession she has reached the haven of peace, and that she has not yet been able to obtain for him the desired book about the martyrs. His friend Nidhard, with whom he was bound not by earthly ties but by the spiritual bond of Christian love, he exhorts to the study of the Holy Scripture as the fountain of all goods and of the highest blessedness. An abbess, Kangyth, bowed down with sins and tribulations, wishes, together with a woman friend, to ease her heart by confession at Rome, and asks Bonifacius for counsel, because many thought she must remain in the place where she had taken her vow. His answer is no longer extant, but to Bugga he writes about it that he would neither advise for nor against, but counsel her first to await the outcome of the incursions of the Saracens into Italy. Otherwise he advised against pilgrimages to Rome, and mentions with grief that of such women pilgrims some were left behind in almost all the cities and lived as public harlots, to the shame of the English name. The archbishop Nothelm in England he once asks for his opinion whether he had really, as the Romans asserted, committed a sin by the marriage of a man with a widow whose child he had formerly held at baptism; he could not see how such spiritual relationship could forbid a fleshly union, since we are all, through the Baptism of Christ and of the Church, sons and daughters, and so brothers and sisters.

(To be continued)

Correction of an Article in the "kirchliches Informatorium" of Rev. Grabau, concerning the Affairs of the Lutheran Congregation at Detroit, Mich.

(Conclusion.)

When Rev. Winkler, in regard to the sad occurrence on the evening of the 17th of June of last year, reports that he wished to make a last attempt to restrain the undersigned from further sins, and therefore thought to set forth to him, before the Vorstand and other Christian witnesses who had been through it all, the whole doings of the Rottierer, to which end he invited him, and indeed him alone, to his house: this is from the outset a base falsification of the