# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 06 22_S170
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

170

tor, you are too lenient, you must make it sharper," etc.—again against their conscience; and I have God as my witness that the sick who, after their recovery, have not fallen back into their old wickedness, can confess that the sick have always had the pastoral exhortation and comfort from me.

"On account of wanton neglect of his office through laziness and softness." Yet the undersigned have said to my face and to others: Our pastor, with his frequent ill health, will not last long; he exerts himself too much, he does not spare himself at all.

I will refrain from proving at length how I, weak and half blind, had to be lifted onto the wagon and down from it, merely to devote my few powers to the service in the holy office. Have you forgotten that? Or do you no longer know that from weakness I often could not stand while preaching, but had to sit? But I will here insert word for word the medical certificate which I had given me in 1850 by my physician, who treated me in Martinsville and at present still lives and practices at Bergholz, when I became certain that the web of wickedness spun against me by Past. Grabau and v. Rohr was being further manufactured.

(Literal Copy.)

"That I treated Pastor Krause at Martinsville for a long time for an ulcer on the arm resulting from a burn, which resisted healing for a long time chiefly because Pastor Krause, urged on by the endeavor to fulfill his calling, often exposed himself to the most unfavorable weather without heeding my medical advice. After the cure of this affliction an affliction of the eyes developed, which, gradually gaining the upper hand, threatened to pass into amaurosis. Since his dwelling was very bad and altogether unsuited to the healing of this sickness, I advised the obtaining of a suitable place; but none was to be found at Martinsville, and Pastor Krause saw himself compelled, after a further consultation held with Doctor Nichel of Buffalo, to move to Buffalo, where he was treated under my direction and that of several colleagues until the improvement of his affliction. This is attested dutifully, in accordance with the truth, upon request.

Emil Theodor Stange,

Dr. Med. Chirurg. Artisque Obstetriciæ.

New Bergholz, Nov. 1. 1850."

Should Pastors Grabau and v. Rohr, together with you, distrust this copy, I beg Mr. v. Rohr to show it to Dr. Stange, who will gladly give him information.

"On account of "sectarian separation from his ministerium."

Again you have been quite falsely informed by Mr. Grabau and v. Rohr. To these gentlemen I declared openly on the 2nd of September 1850: if they persisted in their hierarchical doings, I should be compelled from now on to withdraw from all official connection with them. Since they not only persisted therein, but also practiced all manner of intrigues against me (compare my two little defensive pamphlets), I announced to them in writing, doubly, on the 25th of Sept. and the 3rd of Oct. 1850, my withdrawal from their ministerium and synod, and sent to the orthodox Lutheran Synod of Missouri, etc., which I had long assailed, my apology, and rejoiced in their Christian brotherly forgiveness.

"On account of forsaking his congregation." Your deputies Sack and Großkopf, however, declared to me on the 9th of September 1850 in your name: that if I did not remain united with Pastors Grabau and v. Rohr, I could not be your pastor. The gentlemen Grabau and v. Rohr, together with the deputies from Bergholz, Walmow from Buffalo, therefore commended your deputies, who declared this against me in your name, when I stated definitely: I will gladly serve the congregation at Martinsville, but with Pastors Grabau and v. Rohr I can, according to the explanations given, stand in no official connection.

The so-called Martinsville article says further: "It is incorrect and untrue that his brother ministers had for a year and a day sought to slander and overthrow him among us, etc."

But it is quite correct; for Mr. v. Rohr himself had to admit to me, against his will, on the 2nd of September 1850, that he had preached against me and sinned against me, that he had denounced me to you as a sectary, a heretic, etc. But Mr. v. Rohr and Grabau have continued therewith and at last, in their opinion, have overthrown me.

The Martinsville article further says: "He (I, Krause) pretends in his first book of slander that since 1848 he has defended the Missourian views of the Christian liberty of the congregations, etc."

I ask that it be shown me from my little book that I wrote therein that I had defended the Missourian views.

Neither the Missourian nor any other views have I defended therein, but have confessed the liberty from the yoke of human ordinances given and bestowed upon Christians by God the LORD in His Word. This is a divine privilege bestowed upon His Church, and not brought up by the Missouri Synod; and not the Missouri Synod, but God the Holy Ghost calls through St. Paul: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5, 1.)

In the Martinsville article it says further: "Thereby he exercised such a tyrannical harshness, and so interfered with the actual rights of the congregation, that we had to seek protection with other pastors. On the other hand we had to beg him to do his duty, namely, to take charge of the leadership of the congregations at their congregational meetings, which he refused from sloth, under the pretext that he did not wish to meddle in external affairs."

How plainly you here yourselves prove, dear Christians, that you are imputing something to me, is so clear to every upright person that it is a wonder how you expose yourselves so. First you rebuke me as a tyrant who has interfered with your rights, and then you rebuke me for having let everything go as it would, and for not wishing to concern myself at all about congregational affairs. That is about as if wicked children were to say about their upright parents to the neighbors: yes, my father, my mother treat us quite dreadfully hard, for we can do what we like, and when we ask our parents to bring us up well and not to let us have our own way, they say: oh, leave us in peace, do what you will. Alas, our parents treat us so strictly and so confined that we may run out by all the doors and rove about everywhere.

But I will remind you of something more. You had, being accustomed to it by Pastors Grabau and v. Rohr, acquired a right, and were moreover required by them, to let them decide how it should turn out in matters of husbandry. If, for instance, someone dug a ditch, and the water ran here or there onto the neighbor's land, or the cattle broke through, or jumped over the fence, or so-and-so claimed that the tree which that one had felled in the woods stands really on my district, then you came before Messrs. Grabau and v. Rohr, and they were to decide it.

They did decide, although they understood nothing of all that and it did not belong to the holy ministry. And whence have the many enmities in Martinsville arisen? Did you not tell me yourselves: through these decisions of these pastors! To decide such things was also required of me by several among you. Do you not know that I instructed you: 1. I understood nothing of it; 2. I was not set among you as judge or divider of inheritances, but called to be pastor of you? The answer was: yes, Pastors Grabau and v. Rohr have done it too, so you must do it also. When I replied: I have nothing to judge concerning these gentlemen here, but keep myself away from such things, and hold to my instruction as a pastor and God's prohibition against meddling in another's office, but only to counsel toward peace: then you were displeased and secretly denounced me to these gentlemen as one who did not concern himself about you and did not promote your right.

These gladly listened to you and gave you