# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 03 02_S110
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

110

of the divine Word, so that the number of those baptized by him rose to perhaps 100,000. With untiring activity he gathered these into congregations, set pastors over them, as good as he could get them, caused churches to be built, sought to introduce discipline and order, prevailed upon numerous brothers and sisters to come over from England and help him draw the overfull net, founded monasteries as nurseries, in particular that at Ohrdruf, in order to train pastors and curates from among the natives of the land. Of the churches which he built, one or another probably still stands. The first is said to have been that at the Altenberg in the Thuringian Forest, the site of which Christian gratitude adorned in the year 1811 with a beautiful monument.

When one compares these extraordinarily great and rapid successes, which Boniface obtained especially in Thuringia, with the slow progress of the conversion of the heathen in our day, one may easily come either to accuse the unskillfulness and feebleness of the latter, or to charge him with having contented himself with a merely outward conversion. But both are wrong. The mission of today still stands in its beginnings and has to do with a much more degenerate heathenism; Boniface, on the other hand, completed a work already prepared and carried forward for centuries, and men such as he was not every century brings forth. Those thousands whom he baptized were, to be sure, just as little as at present, all perfect Christians, but they now bowed themselves under Christian truth and order. That a mighty awakening must really have seized the people at that time is evident not only from the testimonies still extant, but also from the circumstance that within the space of 50 years the spirit and manners of the German people appear thoroughly permeated by the Christian character. To be sure, not everyone could learn to read, since there were no printed books, and only a few clergymen may have been able to accomplish anything with preaching; so much the more zealously they insisted upon the introduction of Christian customs and upon the learning of the chief parts of the Christian faith, and had for this in confession a means at least as effective as we have in preaching. A glorious zeal for the Gospel and for the kingdom of God must, however, have filled England at that time, and the monasteries seem to have been its chief hearth. With touching emulation the English Church helped, with messengers, letters, gifts of money, books and prayer, in the conversion of their German kinsmen. In touching letters, penetrated with evangelical knowledge of the Scriptures, Winfrid gives thanks and entreats. One perceives in every word how the heathen entrusted to him lie upon his heart. He aims, to be sure, rather at converting them from dead idols to the living God and to the fellowship of the Catholic Church than at redeeming them from their sins and cleansing them in the blood of the Lamb. But one would err greatly if one wished to presuppose the aberrations and the deadness of the later Church already in those times. The adoration of images of the saints, for example, was publicly rejected as superstition by a synod 50 years later; the English Bishop Daniel calls himself a "servant of the people of God; in the whole German clergy there was preserved for over 100 years an independent spirit, which vanished only when, in the shattering storms of the empire, the Church attached itself more and more to the Pope, in order to have a refuge in the universal insecurity. As a testimony to the living evangelical spirit of that time, let there stand here an extract from some letters of Winfrid to the Abbess Eadburga in England.

"To the most venerable and in Christ most beloved Abbess Eadburga the unworthy and humble servant wishes everlasting salvation in the Lord.

I adjure thy grace with the most heartfelt entreaties that thou wouldest remember me in thy holy prayers, as thy kindness graciously promised me through our returning brother N. With urgent entreaty I beseech thee to support the ship of my frailty, which is daily shaken by the storm-whirlwinds of this world, by the aid of thy steadfastness, in that thou dost protect me against the poisoned arrows of the old enemy by thy intercessions. As a token of my gratitude I send thee a silver stylus and a little storax and cinnamon; and if thou wilt command me anything through the bearer of these lines, Ceola, I will seek to execute it to the best of my power according to our spiritual brotherhood. I have everywhere labor, tribulation, strife and fear, for the guile of the false brethren exceeds even the wickedness of the heathen. May therefore the only refuge of the weary, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, keep me unharmed with His right hand among the wolves, so that there be not found in our hands, instead of the lamp of evangelical peace, the dark traces of erring apostates. Truly hast thou comforted me in my German Patmos with spiritual light by the gift of the holy Scriptures. For whoso would explore the dark corners of the German tribes without God's Word as a lamp unto his feet must fall into the snares of death. So pray, then, also to the Lord for the conversion of the heathen, whom the apostolic see has committed to me, and that He may grant me a joyful opening of my mouth. Finally, cause the Epistles of Peter to be copied for me in letters of gold, that the holy Scriptures may inspire the carnal eyes with more reverence".

(Conclusion follows.)

Dedication of a Church.

My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God; for the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest, — — even thine altars, O Lord of hosts. — Ps. 84, 3, 4.

In this word of the Psalmist we also now join, giving thanks and rejoicing; for although through God's pure Word and the unadulterated Sacraments we had already found sure shelter and protection in the spiritual house of the Church of Christ, yet hitherto we still lacked a house of God built of stone and wood, in which we might assemble for the offering of the sacrifices of our hearts, for praising and giving thanks, and for the hearing of the precious Word of God. This need is now supplied, — God hath built us a house. —

Trusting in the help of the Lord, we laid, though poor and weak, three years ago, the cornerstone of the German Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel's Church U. A. C., at which celebration Pastor Baumgart delivered the festal address. Immanuel — the Lord helps — we named our church to be built, for this reason, because we despaired of our own strength, but expected everything from the help of the Lord, and in His name went courageously and confidently to the work. At first, then, it seemed as though we could go no further, and as though God had forsaken us; for not only was there lack everywhere, — but also the enemy, whom we had helped to build his house, but who then, on account of our adherence to the church order and our fidelity to the confession, cast us out, he too sought by persecution and slander to hinder our building.

So it went on; by turns the house of the Lord was built upon, soon the work stood again desolate and abandoned. The weak among us began to become of little faith and to cry: "we perish", without yet crying in true faith: "Lord, help."

Four years has our congregation thus had to wander about homeless and persecuted, an Israel in the wilderness, pitching its tent now here, now there. Much, under such circumstances, we had to forgo of the full, beautiful Lutheran divine services. Like Israel in Babylon, we too hung our harps upon the willows and wept. Alas! they were for us four dark, purifying years of trial; many a dross that was not pure gold separated itself off; yet that time of trial was serviceable and wholesome for progress in knowledge and fidelity to the confession, for the growth of the inner life.

But God be praised and thanked, that dark, gloomy night is past, and the countenance of Him who is the help of our countenance and our God shines kindly upon us again. He has not suffered us to become a mockery to our enemies, nor to be put to shame, but has graciously heard our prayer for help. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory. And He has given glory to Him — to His name: Immanuel; of that we are witnesses.