# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 04 27_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

143

favor and disfavor of persons, clearly enough evident to the reader who keeps his eye on it, that the writer of the "Kossuth-Fever" had no malicious intent with regard to Rev. P. Stohlmann.

Dr. W. Sihler, P.

Fort Wayne, 7 March 1852.

Gleanings from the "Herold."

Thus it says in the 24th number of the current volume: "It can also be demonstrated from other unequivocal utterances of the Redeemer that the idea was wholly foreign to Him of regarding His Church as a sort of police-state, in which the transgression of the legal order is to be censured and punished, and the last penalty, civil death, the expulsion from the congregation, is to be." — That is a gospel such as the hirelings among the preachers and the impenitent among the laity gladly hear. Ah, that God would look upon it, and instead of such cushion- and pillow-makers (Ezek. 13, 16—23.) give to our poor American-Lutheran Church, in which church discipline lies so wholly in neglect and above all the Key of binding lies so wholly in a corner, men who would lift up their voice like a trumpet and declare to the people their sin! Compare 1 Cor. 5, 13, and the whole chapter.

In the same place it says: "Thus I am, for instance, tolerably well agreed with the above" (the Lutherans) "in the doctrine of the Holy Supper; but this I cannot endure, that in the administration they are not satisfied with the mighty words of the Redeemer," (?) "but add „„true““ and presume cleverly to make it better thereby." — It is as if one heard a Crypto-Calvinist speak here; for only to these has it hitherto been offensive that the Lutherans say, precisely for their sake: This is the true Body, etc., and thereby precisely only confess themselves to the "mighty words of the Redeemer," as to words which they hold to be true. But suppose the writer were not a Crypto-Calvinist either, it is all the more lamentable that he attacks his brethren in the faith on account of a practice which most orthodox churches have had for centuries, and, as he ought to know, not in order to add anything to Christ's words, but in order to remain by Christ's words. A Christian must not be ashamed of the confession of the pure doctrine even there where it is easy for the falsifiers of the truth to bring upon him, before the ignorant people, the suspicion of departing from God's Word; for however error may adorn itself, in the end it is nevertheless unmasked, and however the truth and the honest confession of it may also be bespattered with filth and disfigured, in the end the truth will and must nevertheless prevail.

It is remarkable that the dear "Herold," on the article which appeared in the "Lutheraner" about the Kossuth fever, falls upon the writer so fiercely, as if the latter had attacked not a poor man, but our dear Lord God Himself. But so it goes often; when our Lord God is attacked, one can look "in love" through the fingers; but if one once treads upon a man too closely, even only through oversight or led thereto by slanders of others, then one would like to set heaven and earth in motion against such unheard-of outrage. But the most lamentable thing herein is this, that the "Herold," with almost all the "Christian" newspaper writers of this place, formerly itself extolled Kossuth's godless doings, and now, when Pastor Stohlmann is erroneously accused, upon a public printed report, of this very homage, comes forward against the writer of this rebuke as against a "fine" fellow, yes, a villain, who out of obdurate malice has besmeared an honest man with the slaver of unexampled slander. If the "Herold" holds the Lutheran doctrine of the government, defended in the "Lutheraner" (in that article "das Kossuthfieber") by our dear and faithful brother Sihler, to be true, then it ought, if it wished to act in a Christian manner, to have said: Dear brother, you err; rejoice, Pastor Stohlmann is far from celebrating a godless cause as a "holy" one and from letting himself be swept along with the stream of the spirit of the age; the New Yorker Staatszeitung has lied; you will therefore certainly with joy publicly vindicate Pastor Stohlmann and retract the erroneous testimony about him, to which that false report misled you. But if the "Herold," on the other hand, holds its former false view of the legitimacy of the Kossuthian and similar agitations for the promotion of revolution to be true, then the "Herold," as an honest man, ought to have said: Dear brother, you err; Pastor Stohlmann is, alas! not yet so enlightened as to pray for Kossuth's holy cause. But enough and more than enough of this! May the merciful God help that at last honesty, impartiality and that single eye which looks solely to the truth and God's honor may guide the contest, and that Christian newspaper writers in particular may continually have before their eyes and in their hearts the word of Scripture: "Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?" Job 13, 7.

A Martyr of the Evangelical Church

was Gilius von der Banner, a rich, esteemed and pious merchant at Antorff in the Netherlands. The evangelical congregation there had deputed him with several others to call experienced, zealous men from Germany, who were to introduce the Reformation in Antorff. When he had now come home again and the papal inquisitors had learned of his return, they had him fetched by force at night from his house and put into the prison "Auf dem Stein." In the morning some monks came and questioned him whether he would condemn the Lutheran doctrine and return to the Roman Church, whereby they, in order to shake his steadfastness, threatened him in case of refusal with a terrible, cruel death. He answered that he held Luther's doctrine in his heart to be the eternal divine truth, wherefore he could not and would not condemn it; but their idolatry he must reject according to God's Word. At this the inquisitor became angry and had the executioner with a wooden club shatter both his thighs, in the opinion that he would lead him away by such torture from the truth known and confessed; but he remained steadfast through God's grace and sang with a loud, joyful voice beautiful, glorious psalms, so that the people in the street could hear it. On the next day the tormentors came again and asked whether he would be converted. He said: "I thank God from my heart that He has converted me; if ye would not be lost eternally, ye may also be converted." Thereupon the executioner had to break both his arms in pieces with the club; but the martyr persisted in the praise of God and was joyful in all his anguish, which was still increased by withdrawal of food and drink. On the third day he was again admonished to recantation and repentance, but as he remained as before, his back and the ribs in his body were bruised and beaten to pieces with the club. At last on the fourth day, because he stood like a rock wholly immovable upon his confession, the executioner had to tear the skin and hair from his head and finally pour hot lead into his throat, whereupon Gilius blessedly gave up his spirit.

This moving history is related by Dr. Schlüsselburg, pastor at Antwerp, in his Postille on the Gospel for the Sunday Exaudi.

If you ask, dear readers, how it is possible that a man can endure such tortures and yet remain comforted and strong in spirit, you may look up the answer yourselves in 2 Corinth. 12, 9. 1 John 4, 4 and 5, 4. But instead of giving yourselves up to an unfruitful wonder at such and similar manifestations of divine power and grace in poor and weak children of men, or to an angry zeal against their tormentors, rather consider that of martyrs it is written: "Whose faith follow." Behold, we enjoy the fruits of their sowings of blood and tears. For if the Christians of the first centuries had become weak and faint-hearted in the afflictions which they had to endure for their faith's sake, what would have become of the Christian Church? And if the dear confessors whom God raised up at the time of the Reformation of the Church had let themselves be frightened by the fury of the enemies and the anguish of the tortures, the pure doctrine would soon have been suppressed again. To us God has made the confession of the truth so easy; we have neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril,