# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 06 08_S163
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

163

pected that the Ephorus would in any case reject this proposal of mine as in the highest degree inadmissible. But to my no small astonishment he at last himself agreed to this condition!—So I was caught, and now also bore my Lutheran testimony before the congregation at Lahde on the second Sunday in Advent. The dear reader can gather from this, I think, plainly enough how many there may be in the united Church who in their conscience are convinced of the sole truth of the Lutheran doctrine and Church, but either do not know how they are to find their way out of the labyrinth of the Union, or have not the courage to leave this Babylon and then to leave it to God what consequences such a step may have for them and their congregations. O how much reason, therefore, has he to thank God who sits quietly in the inheritance of his Lutheran fathers!—

From here we traveled now on Monday the 8th of December to Hannover, in order to speak here with Dr. Petri. He received us with distinguished kindness. In the evening he had invited a larger circle of younger theologians to his house, in which we had to give a report of our church conditions here and where we now also had to remove many an unfavorable impression prevailing here from the minds of the young men, who had formed it, in their wide distance, upon written reports received, however faithful to the truth these might be. As entirely as our Church here in the North American free states has the heart of Dr. Petri, so great are his misgivings whether our Church here, in its present relation to the State, namely in its complete separation from it, has a future.*) The reader can well imagine that we could not but state, in becoming modesty, that we could not enter into the view of Church and Office which underlies that misgiving, however great otherwise our reverence for the deep insight and our respect for the rare learning and the distinguished wealth of spirit of this influential German theologian. †)

*) Elsewhere, by the way, we have had to hear the necessity of a connection of the Church with the State expressed in quite another manner. Thus in a university town a Christian-minded professor of jurisprudence asked us in full earnest, in a large company: with which German prince we American Lutherans had put ourselves in connection, in order to be able to exercise beyond the sea the "episcopal rights belonging, as is well known (?) according to Lutheran doctrine, to the sovereigns of the land," or the church government?

†) Dr. Petri was the elected president at the last general German Lutheran conference at Leipzig; among other things a proof of what high standing he at present occupies among the theologians of Germany.

The pleasantness of our stay in Hannover was still further heightened by two circumstances. First, we met here Doctor of Law E. Wyneken of Stade (brother of our Wyneken), who is now functioning here as elected representative of the estate of the jurists in the First Chamber, which was just then assembled; and secondly we had the great joy of being able to speak, for at least a few hours, with the father of our dear friend and brother Pastor Fick, Mr. Land Commissary Fick, who had hastened hither from Hildesheim upon our invitation. From him we received at the same time the assurance, very gratifying to us, that in a few months the second of his sons also would follow the first to America, in order to serve our Church there with his rich gifts. This was the more gratifying to us since Dr. Petri had decidedly declared that Hannover could in no case dispense with its good believing candidates, and already had to feel painfully enough that so many of them had gone to the neighboring Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg.

On Wednesday the 10th of December we at last departed again from here. Since we knew not only of many active and influential friends and patrons of the American church cause in Mecklenburg, but had also received from there, through Mr. Land Councillor Baron von Maltzan in Rostock, a pressing written invitation, together with the friendly offer that the Land Councillor would himself bear the cost of this journey, we now traveled first to Schwerin, where we arrived on the day named, yet late in the evening. Our first visit we paid the next morning to the Oberkirchenrath Dr. Kliefoth, to whom Pastor Löhe had given us a written recommendation. A sermon on church visitation by the Oberkirchenrath, which he had delivered shortly before and in which he had set forth the defects of the State Church under his supervision as unveiledly as he had urged with holy earnestness its healing and removal, and which we had read on our journey, had already filled us with hearty confidence toward the said gentleman; we found, however, with him so kind a reception as we had not dared even to hope. The letter of recommendation given us to the highly placed man contained at the same time a request for the granting of a church collection in the Grand Duchy for the purpose of an enlargement of our St. Louis Concordia College and Seminary. The Oberkirchenrath inquired with great sympathy after our churchly position, our needs, prospects, etc., and thereupon assured us at once of the granting of the request expressed in that letter, without there having been need, on our part, of so much as a single word confirming the intercession. In accordance with an invitation received we visited the Oberkirchenrath once more on the following day, where we conversed with him chiefly about subjects concerning church government and church order, and received important information on many points from this field, in which Dr. Kliefoth has, as is well known, furnished excellent work,*) Here we also met today Pastor Düring from Neukirchen in Mecklenburg, a fellow-student of several preachers of our Synod, with whom, after mutual conversation, we found ourselves to our great joy in unity of faith and spirit, and from whose own utterances, as well as from reports received concerning him elsewhere, we learned that in his present important congregation he works as zealously as he is blessed.—Already on the day before we had also called upon the local Superintendent, Dr. Karsten. In him we became acquainted with a man who at once won our whole heart. The lovely fatherly relation in which we beheld the Superintendent with his amiable family was manifestly, as we gathered from all the utterances of the dear man, the image of the relation in which he also stands to the souls entrusted to him. He revealed himself to us as a man who has a heart for the people. Hence only brief hints were needed, and it was certain to us well on both sides that we were bound together by the bond of One faith. The hours spent in the company of Dr. Karsten will remain with us in constant and blessed remembrance.

On Friday the 12th of December we now continued our journey, and first to Rostock, where we arrived on the evening of the same day. Yet if I wished to describe all that is interesting and all the proofs of Christian love and of sympathy in the prosperity of our Church in North America which we experienced here also, I should not be able to end my report of the journey even with this number. I therefore communicate of it only the following. Above all we were here overwhelmed, by Land Councillor Baron von Maltzan,†) widely known on account of his exceptional zeal for Christianity and the Church, and by his whole family, animated by the same spirit, with proofs of that love and sympathy which already so many preachers and congregations of our Synod have enjoyed from this quarter in the richest measure. Also the professors of theology, Dr. Krabbe and Dr. Baumgarten, and the professors of the philosophical faculty, Professor Becker and Professor Röper, Pastor M. Serrius and Teacher Hahn (a Lutheran theologian driven out of Prussia), and several other dear gentlemen confessing our good old Lutheran faith, whose worthy names, in the haste of the

*) Cf. among others the excellent work: "Die ursprüngliche Gottesdienstordnung in den deutschen Kirchen lutherischen Bekenntnisses. Rostock. 1847."

†) Among other things he recently moved, as a member of the Diet, in the Chamber that all rationalistic preachers still functioning in the land be removed from their offices; but since these were installed in the time of ignorance, a fund should be raised from which the cost of their maintenance might be defrayed until their final extinction.