# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 04 27_S142
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

142

gen, so that everyone may join devoutly in the prayer. The congregation confirms these prayers by singing the "Amen" with the choir.

At these Collects, as also at the Holy Communion, the pastor turns toward the altar, because there he prays to God with the congregation; at the greeting, at the readings and at the blessing he turns to the congregation, because there he speaks to it.

The reading of the Epistle before the so-called chief hymn and the reading of the Gospel after it stems from ancient Christian times and is similar to the custom in the Old Testament church, where likewise sections from the books of Moses and the Prophets were read.

After the Gospel follows the hymn of the Christian Creed. This and the first two hymns at the beginning of the service were formerly always standing hymns, which were sung on all Sundays and festivals, which order we also wish to retain among us.

During the singing of the last verse of the Creed the pastor goes into the pulpit and reads, without further ado, the Gospel, since the blessing and prayer have already preceded. After the sermon follows the oldest short Church Prayer of 1580. Then on Communion days the intercession for the communicants, as also the announcements, whereupon the whole distress of Christendom is gathered up in a loud Lord's Prayer and then concluded with the apostolic benediction: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc."

Then a few verses are sung, whereupon the pastor sings an intonation and the congregation answers in song.

Thereupon follows a Collect and the Benediction. After the "Amen" the congregation sings a short verse and at the close prays a silent Lord's Prayer.

If the Holy Communion is held, those who do not wish or are not able to be present depart during the singing and after a silent Lord's Prayer. Then the pastor sings with the congregation and the choir the Preface, and the latter two strike up the "Sanctus," as it stands in the St. Louis Hymn-book. Thereupon follows a short address to the communicants from the Agenda, the Lord's Prayer, in which choir and congregation sing the conclusion, then the Words of Institution and finally the hymn "Christe, du Lamm Gottes." After the distribution, during which a Communion hymn is sung, follows the conclusion of the service, as already mentioned.

In this manner the service has now been held since the first Sunday in Advent, and indeed the congregation is accustomed to stand not only at the reading of the Word of God, but also at all that the minister sings and the congregation itself answers in song; likewise at the prayer, at the Preface, etc., and at the closing verse.

On Sundays, in the afternoon services and in the weekday services, ordinarily only a short hymn is sung before the sermon, whereupon everything is then conducted as at the forenoon services, except that the Church Prayer is omitted. After the catechism sermon the first two verses of the hymn "Ach, bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ, etc." are sung, whereupon the Examen follows and after it the verse "Laß mich dein sein und bleiben." The close is as usual.

You will no doubt be glad to know how the people like this new, or rather properly old, order; but about that I cannot write you much, for I get little among the people. This much I have heard here and there, that many a one had imagined the matter quite differently from what he now finds. One thought far more would be changed than has actually been changed; another had a secret dread of all sorts of particular things, e. g. of white surplices; still others feared that the forenoon service would last beyond measure long, whereas it does not last longer now than before, namely two hours, when no Communion is held. But I have also spoken with many who have a hearty joy over it; and I wished to write you all this, that you also might rejoice with us. Fare thee well in the Lord! W.

B., 13 Jan. 1852.

Correction.

In the "lutherischen Kirchenboten," No. 6, a declaration has been sent in by Rev. P. Steimle, appealing at the same time to the testimony of "hundreds," that it was a lie of the N. Yorker Staatszeitung that Rev. P. Stohlmann, on the occasion of the attendance at divine service of Kossuth, "with reference to his arrival, held a sermon and implored God's blessing for his holy cause." Since now in No. 12 of the "Lutheraner," in the article "das Kossuthfieber," under the supposition that that fabrication was truth, the falsely reported conduct of Rev. P. Stohlmann had naturally to be decidedly disapproved and rebuked from the churchly standpoint: therefore this censure, as inapplicable to Rev. P. St., is hereby retracted, and the writer of this can with good conscience, as before God, testify that he would much rather that the N. Yorker Staatszeitung had lied and that he had believed it, than that Rev. P. St. had actually done this of which he was falsely accused.

Rev. P. Steimle only regrets on this occasion that the "Lutheraner" did not first make more exact inquiries before it wrote such facts out into the world, and thinks it ought soon to know that such papers as the N. Y. Stztg. only want to disgrace the preachers where they can."

To this, however, the following must be replied:

In the first place Rev. P. Steimle seems wholly to mistake the entirely different state of the case; for in the sense of the N. Y. Staatszeitung it is certainly no slander, but rather a laudable recognition, when it fabricates for Rev. P. Stohlmann that Kossuth-izing in the pulpit. Moreover, in the second place, the enthusiasm for Kossuth and his cause was at that time so general in vogue among preachers and non-preachers that from the Lutheran Church in the East also, which surely does not profess itself to the narrow-hearted and limited so-called Old Lutherans, no single testimony in accordance with Scripture appeared against it. Since now, as is well known, Rev. P. Stohlmann does not belong to these hated and despised little folk, it was in fact much more credible that he had done as the N. Yorker Staatszeitung reports, than that he, perhaps in the sense of the rusted and short-sighted Old Lutherans, had rebuked from the pulpit, out of and according to God's Word, the fanatical mischief for Kossuth and his cause. Had such a rebuke been reported by that political paper, then an impartial and sensible reader might indeed much sooner have hit upon the thought that it was a malicious fabrication, in order to bring Rev. P. St. into ill repute before the Kossuth-intoxicated mass.

Finally, however, the writer of the "Kossuth-Fever" in the Lutheraner has nowhere come across a counter-declaration of Rev. P. Stohlmann and his congregation, immediately after that fabrication, in which they, from churchly sense of honor, had rebuked such a lie and testified to the truth, which indeed the proper Christian and churchly earnestness, over against the fanatical enthusiasm for Kossuth and his cause, would fairly have required of both. Neither has the "lutherische Herold" for its part made a similar counter-declaration, and nowhere has it let any churchly indignation be seen over that fabrication of the N. Yorker Staatszeitung, although it is not ashamed, contrary to the 8th Commandment, to impute malicious intent to the author of that article.*)

*) As for the mass of spiteful personal attacks and hateful judging of motives against the above-named writer in No. 23 of the "Herold," the latter holds it beneath his dignity to answer even a word to it. Besides, he holds it to be mere loss of time to engage in an unfruitful pen-war with the editor of the "Herold," since the latter proves more clearly in every number — quite apart from the sent-in and printed wretched letters of praise of the "Herold," as from its slander-loving and hateful attacks upon just judgment and rebuke — that he has more itch for writing than love of learning, and altogether, from lack partly of truly churchly disposition, partly of sound sober knowledge both of the divine Word and of the signs of the times, has neither inward nor outward call to write a paper which could represent the Lutheran Church in doctrine and defense, histories and poems.
Note of the contributor.

Nevertheless, little probability as there was, according to the state of things, for this writer that that political paper had lied, he yet held fast to the possibility of the fabrication; for he wrote thus: "If it now really stands as is here reported, etc." And from this it is surely for every impartial, only the matter, without