# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 09 14_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14

mer "must be the worst Apostle or missionary, because his apostleship to the Indians has come to an end," is at least made too early. Whether one has been a good or a bad laborer in the vineyard of the LORD is, after all, revealed here only very imperfectly. But the last day will, among much else, set this also in the brightest light. Then, when many of those who here had always to sow with tears, without enjoying the joy of the harvest, shall nevertheless bring their sheaves with joy, then it will also be shown in how many Indian souls the imperishable seed sown by Prof. Crämer has nevertheless taken root, although it escaped our eyes here; then also it will be made manifest how many souls in the bitter hour of death let everything else go and held fast to Him to whom, as to the Savior of sinners, they were pointed by Prof. Crämer. — Until then, let such a judgment be silent.

That "the other Missourian preachers to the heathen themselves confess that they accomplish little," is very true. They confess most gladly that they themselves accomplish nothing at all, that all the good that has happened has been wrought by God's grace. To the praise of this grace of God, however, it must be said that already several souls, incorporated into the Church militant through the service of the missionaries, now triumph in heaven, which may the more certainly be said as they are for the most part innocent little children, who departed soon after holy Baptism. To the praise of this grace of God it must also be made known that the fifty Indian Christians at Bethany baptized through the service of the "Missourian preachers to the heathen," as well as the forty Indian Christians at Shiboyang, give ground for the hope that at least several of them will remain faithful unto death, and thus obtain the end of their faith. Reason enough for joy and for the praise of God for every Christian who will not despise these small days.

Now, Pastor Grabau will not despise these small days; he will thank God with us, even for the little that has been done, if only he knew for certain what he would gladly believe, that our preachers to the heathen have a right call where they are. This I will now finally demonstrate briefly, and indeed in a manner satisfactory also to Pastor Grabau, and in the hope that he will then no longer withhold the promised praise of God, since it is indeed so precious a thing to praise the LORD evermore. The obligation to furnish this proof has really moved me to write these hasty lines at all.

As to Bethany first, the missionary dwelling there was determined and urgently requested by the (now deceased) chief of the horde, thus by the lawful authority, to settle in his Indian village, to instruct him and his people. The missionary, however, found it advisable not to agree to it until the whole horde should have expressed the same wish. Some time afterward the chief came seventy miles and brought him the news that his people had come together again from their temporary dispersion in the forests, and that this was the time to see and speak with them all. So the missionary journeyed thither, proclaimed in a general assembly of men and women, young and old, the counsel of God for the salvation of all men, also of the Indians, and assured them of his willingness to set forth further to them this counsel of grace of God and so to show them the way to life, without any compulsion, until they themselves should come and ask for admission into the Church of God; he also promised them to establish a school for the youth, if they on their part would promise to send the children to school, and themselves also to assemble on Sundays for the hearing of the Word of God, so that not only on occasion individuals, but at certain times all might hear it. The matter was taken under deliberation, the chief held some remarkable speeches (See on the whole matter the Leipziger evang.-luth. Missionsblatt, Jhrg. 1849.), whereupon each of the men expressed his wish that the missionary might come, and the conditions laid down were agreed to, etc.

From this summary proof Pastor Grabau will surely recognize without difficulty that the missionary is at Bethany in a quite proper call.

As for the station Shiboyang, the Christian little flock there, which had lost its called pastor, Missionary Maier, by death in Saginaw Bay, has begged urgently enough that the missionary now teaching there should move into their midst. And the neighboring heathen at Sibiwäing also request repeatedly more frequent proclamation of the Word in their midst. — And so, then, even according to the principles of Pastor Grabau, the "Missourian preachers to the heathen have a right call there where they sit." Would that he would no longer withhold the thanks to the dear God, which is so richly due Him from every Christian for what He is still doing in these last days among the poor heathen. And would that he, since he has indeed been assured that we also do not approve the doings of the sects among the heathen, would cease to fight against a work that is so clearly commanded by the LORD, and through which indeed he himself also, like all of us in our fathers, was snatched from heathen darkness.

B. Sierakowskj.

Die Einsendung Herrn Bundenthals could find no room in this number; in the next it will appear.

Johann Heermann,
the Singer of God.

You see among the hymns of our hymnal the names of the authors. Have you not often thought at these names: O what godly disciples of the Lord those must have been? Have you not also sometimes wished to know something of the life and death of these singers of God? — Let me relate to you briefly the life and death of an excellent man of God, of whom there are in our hymnal some 26 precious hymns, among them: "O Gott, du frommer Gott!" "Zion klagt mit Angst und Schmerzen." "So wahr ich lebe, spricht dein Gott!"

Johann Heermann was born on the 11th of October, 1585, at Staudten in the principality of Wohlau in Lower Silesia, where his father, a pious and honorable man, though without means, practiced the furrier's trade. When Johann once fell violently ill in his childhood, his mother implored God fervently for his preservation: "if God would give him to her a second time, she would keep him to his studies, even if she should have to beg the money for it." It was done to her as she had prayed in faith, and now she also did what she had vowed, although seven dear years, which followed one after another, made it quite hard for her to bring up her son to study. Before it came to studying with him, he attended four schools; in particular he came into the house of Valerius Herberger at Fraustadt, whose hymn "Valet will ich dir geben" and perhaps also his Herzenspostille will be well known to you. Herberger loved him like his own child and gave him his son, Zacharias, to oversee and to instruct at home. Here the receptive soul of the youth received a deep impression from the life, as spiritual as it was holy, of the pious servant of Christ, who later was also his model in his sermons. Already at that time the rector Brachmann recognized Heermann's precious gift of singing new songs to the LORD. Afterward, at the school at Brieg, where the cantor Schielfuß instructed him, he was, at the age of twenty-three years, publicly crowned as poet with the laurel wreath amid great solemnity. But he remained humble of heart, and his walk from early youth to old age was chaste and sober. Soon he received the office of overseer of three young noblemen, with whom he went to the university of Strassburg. Hardly had he spent a year there when attacks of sickness dimmed his eyesight, so that he had to return home, where after an exceedingly toilsome journey he likewise found his mother sick. But God restored him and his mother and turned the heart of his old patron, Herr von Rothkirch, the father of two of his pupils, so that he not only repaid him the traveling money from Strassburg, but also the chaplaincy at the