# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 06 22_S171
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

171

right, for they feared that by this conduct of mine their interference in temporal affairs, which was serviceable to them for the strengthening of the hierarchy, would be endangered; wherefore they sought thereafter to cast suspicion on me among you and then to get rid of me.

Though you, to please these gentlemen, also deny it, it still remains the truth that Mr. Grabau and v. Rohr set themselves to the utmost against my receiving a healthy dwelling at Martinsville. For they told me straight out that the dwelling was good enough for me; v. Rohr mocked me when I proved the contrary to him. Grabau called out to me: "If you go blind, then you go blind; you can serve the congregation as a blind pastor too," when I showed him that in the damp, swampy dwelling I should go blind, since my eye trouble had its origin there and the oculists all gave the same judgment. The two gentlemen vehemently opposed my making any representation of this to the congregation. And when I nevertheless begged the congregation to be mindful of procuring me a healthy dwelling, and the congregation refused it to me, Past. Grabau rebuked me for it with the approval of Mr. v. Rohr, and the latter in the very words in which you had answered me with a refusal. They talked you into it, and therefore it is sad that you deny it.

It is not to be true, so the Martinsville article asserts, that Mr. v. Rohr, from August 1850 on, secretly and publicly made you distrustful of me. But Mr. v. Rohr himself admitted it, as has already been shown, on the 2nd of September 1850.

You say: "It is a fabrication that I testify that you were seduced by a system of eavesdropping and informing into hypocrisy and treachery." Then I must, however sorry it makes me, remind you hereby: do you no longer know that I very often rebuffed you in private when you wanted to make me this or that communication of secret matters? Did I not ask you in private to leave off such spying? Did I not ask publicly from the pulpit that I be spared such tale-bearing? Do the undersigned elders, who were elders in Martinsville during my administration of office, not know that they told me: they wanted to listen in the street and at the houses in the evening to hear what was going on there? They would have done that too, on the advice of Mr. Grabau and v. Rohr, and found out so much thereby! To this I replied to them that then I would have to dissuade them altogether, for church elders were not secret spies and eavesdroppers, not secret police; what we needed to know God would let us learn in an honest and orderly way; I could not and dared not accept reports drawn from such spying. (1 Cor. 14, 40. Sir. 21, 26.) That vexed you and your elders; you complained behind my back to Mr. Grabau and v. Rohr, and these gentlemen agreed with you.

You say: Krause refused the investigation.

That is a hostile fabrication made by Mr. Grabau and v. Rohr, and also by your deputies and the other deputies, and palmed off on you as truth, which you by your signature declare accepted. These gentlemen know very well, however, that I repeatedly declared to them: I would accept the investigation on the spot before the whole Martinsville congregation as soon as I was restored with God's help. But that did not suit the reverend gentlemen; for they had to fear that the people of Martinsville, deceived by them, would then be undeceived and give the honor to the truth. Since they could not reject this declaration of mine, they sought to cover themselves thereby,—they suspended me, namely, forthwith on the night of the 9th of September, repeated the proceedings on the following day, but told me not a word that I was suspended, and since I had to stand by my declaration, Past. Grabau traveled on the 11th of September to Martinsville, where Past. v. Rohr appeared by arrangement. Then old and young, adults and children, were assembled and talked into acknowledging the suspension ordered against me by Past. Grabau and v. Rohr and approved by Past. Lange. When on the 23rd and 24th of September Messrs. Grabau and v. Rohr put forward and maintained the unjust assertion that what they had put on paper in Martinsville against me was true, and to my retort: "whereof I, however, prove the contrary?" answered: it depends on the testimony,—and when I replied to them: only on true and not on false witnesses,—they merely mocked, reviled, and without further ado condemned me as guilty, I declared to them: since I am already condemned without investigation, and you are bent on doing this once more in Martinsville, and so will persist in your injustice, it is quite useless for me to say anything further in reply. God will judge it rightly at last!" With this I took my leave, and the next day, the 25th of September, I sent them my renunciation of their ministerium and synod.

Then the Martinsville article says: I invented it that you were infatuated by Past. Grabau and v. Rohr into thinking that only with them is salvation secure.

Dear Christians! Pastor Grabau, with the consent of his colleagues, now teaches in print in his Informatorium what he and Mr. v. Rohr formerly told you by word of mouth. You read this Informatorium, as is well known. There you find, indeed, that in this Informatorium the orthodox Lutheran Synod of Missouri and the faithful witness of the truth "Pfarrer Löhe"(*) are blasphemed, reviled, and mocked as false teachers, enthusiasts, Unionists, etc. Why? Because they do not accept the human ordinances of Messrs. Grabau and v. Rohr. See how Mr. Grabau now refutes himself and you, and proves along with you that I have testified the truth.

*) Thus, for example, in No. 2, page 11 of the Informatorium, Pastor Löhe is called "a man active for the North American Lutheran Church;" in No. 5, page 35, Löhe's words are called: "Thunder-words that penetrate deep into the hearts, especially as Löhe is a man who deserves universal respect." And in No. 12, page 96, Löhe is promptly cast aside and it is said: "he takes the same position toward the Bavarian national church as those preachers in Prussia who wish to be Lutheran within the Union national church." And why, then, is Löhe suddenly good for nothing any more with Mr. Grabau? Answer: Because Löhe in sincerity of heart gives honor to the truth, and has not become Mr. Grabau's fellow-combatant against the truth, as he had hoped. So soon do these gentlemen exalt, so soon trample down their neighbor, according as their advantage seems to require. L. F. E. K.

Further you say: "I thought you let yourselves be forbidden to examine and judge doctrine."

I do not think that, I do not imagine it, but Messrs. Grabau and v. Rohr really do forbid it to you. Do you not know that those members of the Buffalo Synod who acknowledge and confess as right the correct doctrine of the Church, of the ministry, of the universal spiritual priesthood of Christians, of Christian liberty, are put under church discipline, and if they hold fast to the correct conviction received through God's grace, are put under the ban as agitators, sectaries, and Missourian enthusiasts? Have you already forgotten such bannings? Do not many in the Bergholz congregation testify to this day against such sinful ban? It is so well known that only a deliberate forgetfulness could no longer know it.

Lastly you assert: I flattered you and set you above your pastors.

Therein you err again. Wherein have I flattered you? Wherewith have I set you above your pastors? That is surely not flattery, when I hope the best of my neighbor, and moreover give grounds for it,—as I have hoped of you and still hope, according to God's Word: "Charity hopeth all things." (1 Cor. 13, 7,)

Is that an exalting above your pastors, when it is recognized that Christians with the simple eyes of faith see further than subtle scholars who practice the principle of the Pharisees: "This people who knoweth not the law are cursed." (John 7, 49.)

Though now your undersigned church elders and church councilors speak against better knowledge, it nevertheless remains,—you are not all so minded; for God's Word does not leave itself without witness: "He maketh it to prosper with the upright, and preserveth the simple." (Prov. 2, 7. Ps. 116, 6.) And how far the conscience has awakened in the one and the other, and he perceives the impurity with which Messrs. Grabau and v. Rohr deal,—and such awakened souls long for the wholesome pasture of the Gospel,—how far it has come with you in this since the 27th of July 1851, when the article named after you appeared in the Infor-