# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 02 03_S92
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

92

lichen meekness, when all sorts of sinful bad manners of your children provoke you to wrath; in perseverance and fidelity, when the frivolity, the inconstancy and the unwillingness for good and firm habituation meet you in your little ones; in unceasing prayer and intercession, when you partly perceive in yourselves at all times the lack of love and wisdom, partly constantly experience how it so often will not go forward with the children and, without the blessing of grace from God, nothing is accomplished with all your labor of love; finally in hope, when this or that one of your children, at the independent entrance into life, through the deceit of the devil and the seduction of the wicked world should for a time fall away from its kind and your faithful admonition for the present time produce no fruit, that you yet cease not to plead, to sigh and — to hope for them to the faithful God.

In sum: In so many ways God trains you, while you, as His fellow-helpers and nurses, train His and your children; and surely the fruit and the gain which you have from God in your own souls is not less, if not indeed greater, than that which your children carry away from you through your discipline and God's blessing.

So I would have set before your souls, dear Christian parents, in this first letter, first of all the high dignity and glory of your calling before God, that and how you are, namely, in the great work of the Christian upbringing of your children, not only God's friends, to whom He has made known His heart, counsel and will also in this matter, but at the same time His fellow-helpers and co-workers, in order especially to help the immortal souls of your children to eternal life.

The Kossuth Fever.

Willingly would "der Lutheraner" have kept silence about this man and let the fever which his arrival and his speeches have caused almost everywhere die away, since the personality and the activity of the same have at first no direct relation to the Church. Willingly, too, would he have lost no word over the fact that even the English-American preachers of all sorts of denominations have paid their homage to Mr. Kossuth and greeted this new star with reverence, content that Mr. Kossuth professes respect for the Bible and does not wish to be an atheist and scoffer, as most of the spokesmen of European demagogy and democracy of this time undeniably are. For "der Lutheraner" is already accustomed to this, that the mass of the local sect-preachers, partly from lack of thorough and sober knowledge of Scripture and of a firm and certain churchly standpoint — since they are indeed not servants of the Church of God, but of their own particular denomination. — mix up political and churchly matters, partly from historical ignorance and American patriotism greatly overrate the local constitution of the civil commonwealth, partly finally, since they are mostly called by the people's favor, yea, hired and engaged for a time by their respective congregations, out of all sorts of man-pleasing and toadyism, set much pains and time upon being and remaining popular and fashionable, and, instead of earnestly rebuking the national sins and national failings out of and according to God's Word and training their people fatherly and Christian-wise, prefer rather to go along with their congregations in political enthusiasm, according to the particular stimulus.

And finally, this also would not have moved "der Lutheraner" to open its mouth, that the "Lutheran Observer" in its editor, Mr. Dr. Kurtz, is seized by the same Kossuth-fever, since he, together with his so-called Lutheran General Synod, is just as unclear and enthusiastic and more American than churchly, besides bears the Lutheran name only unlawfully and as a robbery, in that he has torn apart the unity and purity of the Lutheran Confession and is ruled partly by Reformed false doctrine, partly by Methodistic Pietism.

This lamentable man, who up to now, in spite of his advanced age, for sheer pietistic multiplicity of business seems to have come neither to the knowledge nor to the experience of the real nature of justifying faith, and who therefore has no churchly standpoint, no light from God's Word to recognize and judge the signs of the times rightly — this American Doctor of Theology, rather stripped of sound understanding of Scripture, cannot indeed do otherwise than for a while to be also a bit of a Kossuthian. He would indeed be harder than stone and colder than ice, with his countrymen, after Ronge and Co. are gone and Jenny Lind has departed, not to rave along for a while now for Kossuth, and to let the vain eulogies of the "Baltimore Sun" be printed, yea, from his own sources even to add a prayer of Kossuth's which the same held at the grave of Hungarian warriors who had fallen in the battle at Rappoylna. It also disturbs the Rev. Dr. Kurtz in no way, who always has the watchword "the Bible, the Bible!" in his mouth, while yet at the same time he despises the Scriptural Confession of the Lutheran Church — God grant, out of ignorance and not out of malice — that this prayer is not only throughout fanatical and arises from a failure to know the difference between Christian and political liberty, between fanatical and Christian-believing martyrdom, but also that the following, utterly unscriptural passage occurs in it:

"By such a sacrifice as theirs (namely, of his fallen Hungarian brethren) is, Thy earth, O God, would be sanctified, even if it were wholly defiled with sin. O God! on this holy ground, over these graves no race of slaves can live."

Has then Mr. Dr. Kurtz so little understanding of the Bible, and in his burning enthusiasm for the praying Kossuth so cold a heart for the honor of his Savior, that this passage has not rather made him indignant and moved him to Christian compassion for Kossuth, so unclear in Biblical matters, praying after a fanatical fashion? Or does he really not know that not even the death and the blood of the Christian confessors and martyrs, to say nothing of that of political fanatics (to name them in the mildest way), but the blood of the Son of God alone has sanctified the earth, which without Him was laden with a curse and defiled with sin? Has this teacher of the Church then not yet learned from the 3rd chief part of the small Lutheran Catechism that the true prayer of a Christian that will be heard rests alone upon God's command and promise and flows from simple, sound faith in the Lord Christ and His merit, and not from fanatical folly and human opinion?

But, as said, even this folly of the Rev. Dr. Kurtz, of a fanatical, dizzy and flighty spirit that raves along, would not have moved "der Lutheraner" to give a medical opinion on the Kossuth-fever, if the "N. Yorker Staatszeitung" had not reported the following:

"On Sunday morning Kossuth, accompanied by the Mayor and Mr. Pulszky, attended divine service in the Lutheran St. Matthew's Church in Walker Street. Mr. Stohlmann preached the sermon with reference to the arrival of the man who is evidently sent by God to redeem the nations from bondage, and in his prayer implored God's blessing upon Kossuth and his holy cause."

If it now actually stands thus, as is here reported, then only the following either — or is at hand. Either Rev. Stohlmann is just as unclear and fanatical in Biblical matters as Dr. Kurtz, or he has better knowledge, but, in order to be popular and fashionable, out of man-pleasing and toadyism joins in the new ruling fanaticism for Kossuth and his cause.

But since Rev. Stohlmann, both personally and in connection with his Synod, openly professes with us the unabridged and unfalsified Confession of the Lutheran Church: therefore "der Lutheraner," which shares the same Confession, out of Lutheran and churchly honor and for the sake of the Confession and conscience, is constrained to break the silence, to rebuke the unchurchly conduct of Rev. Stohlmann, and on this occasion to shed a little light, out of God's Word, upon Kossuth and his cause for the instruction of all upright Lutherans.

He wishes, however, to begin with the last, because only from such a correction the un-