# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 10 26_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

37

… so often cited by our opponents, is to be found in Luther's writings:

Who loves not wine, women, and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long.

The widely read Ukert says in his biography of Luther: "I have not found this rhyme in Luther's writings; generally (but then falsely) it is attributed to him."

Let him solve this riddle who will; but whether this rhyme ascribed to Luther became known 300 years before anyone found it, even our Catholic opponents cannot deny that among themselves, too, there are quite a few to be found whose practice, especially with regard to the first two fondnesses, agrees entirely with this rhyme, because presumably they do not wish to be regarded as fools but as wise men.

Your friend

† † †

(Communicated.)

Most esteemed Mr. B.!

Some time ago you sent me a few numbers of the St. Louis Sonntagsblatt for Catholic life. In it a headline caught my eye, furnished with a mighty mark, namely a border of stout red-chalk strokes, two pillars, and above them a long crossbeam, about in the shape of a Roman yoke or of a gallows. The headline, in thick bold letters, ran thus: "The Unhappy Consequences of the Reformation," and beneath it, in very thin, slender print: "from Luther's own confession."

I thought that, after this announcement, I should find only one confession of Luther's, but how I wondered when I found several of them. Well, thought I, how diligently the man who wrote that must have studied through all Luther's books, for that is certainly something rare among Catholics and puts many Lutherans to shame. But no, these dear people need not trouble themselves so much, because one of them, as I once heard, has already done the preliminary work for all and made an extract from Luther's writings, in which all the passages are nicely gathered together that they commonly cite against us, and which sound about like organ music when a dog runs across the pedals.

Those confessions now contain for the most part all sorts of complaints of Luther's that the Lutherans have borne so little fruit from the pure preached Word of God, that they had not become better, but rather worse, than they were under the papacy. But why should I write that to you; you have no doubt read it yourself. But what I thought on reading it, that you will want to know. Well, I thought: Ah, you poor Luther and you poor Lutherans, if what the man there reveals out of Luther's own confessions had become known earlier, it would have been all over with you, and it would still be as well known among the Lutherans now as it is among the Catholics, and held, besides, for as pure and plain truth as they hold it, then it would be all up with the Lutherans in a flash. Moreover I thought, speaking in confidence, further still: if the Catholics were quite clever people, they would have all the writings of Luther, in which those confessions are to be found, printed anew and secretly and free of charge distributed among the Lutherans, since such a thing reads far better in its context, and a whole garment is better than a few torn-off rags; and if even such single writings of Luther's were to have an uncommon success and open people's eyes, what effect must not the complete writings of Luther have; for much helps much, as the proverb says. Perhaps, for with certainty one cannot indeed assert it, thousands and again thousands of Lutherans would then come running to the Pope and his henchmen, to behold the angelically pure, brightly shining, sweet-smelling, far-famed holiness, innocence, and virtue; there they would be initiated into the mysteries of the pious life, such as many of them lead inside and outside the cloisters; there they would be introduced into the houses and families of the believers (for they know, once for all, no unbelievers other than the heretics condemned by them and the excommunicated); there they would find no trace of godless, idolatrous conduct, of cursing and swearing, of contempt of God's Word, no trace of wicked parents and wicked children, of hatred and wrath, of scolding and beating, no trace of adultery and whoredom, of gluttony and drunkenness, of fraud and unrighteousness, of lying and slander, and such like works of the flesh. Exceedingly astonished at this, the Lutherans would cry to the Catholics: Why do you still torment yourselves early and late with self-chosen devotions and unwilling fasting (for dog and ass fast too, when they must), why do you still give a cent for indulgence, which you have no need of at all, since you have long ago ceased from sins and are full of all holiness? You ought to go in procession through all the streets, ring all the bells, and have it proclaimed before you: Here come the holy people, who are holier than the holiest people of both the Old and the New Testament, for these still complained always of their sin and cried to God for forgiveness of their sin.

Now I come back to that article; it surprised me that it was broken off so quickly and that no hope of a continuation was given. For I thought that the author would now begin to show the unhappy consequences of the Reformation for the papacy, and likewise out of Luther's writings, for example the increasing hardening of the Catholics, which is nevertheless the severest judgment of God for the rejection and persecution of the Gospel, then the fall of the papacy through this preaching, the loss of so many of its members, and the like. Conversely, the author ought also to have mentioned the blessed consequences of the Reformation, for example the deliverance from so long and heavy a bondage of consciences and the translation into the blessed liberty of the children of God, for which the Christians in Leipzig once thanked God with tears upon their knees while they heard the first evangelical sermon. But I recall just now that such a thing would not have suited a Catholic Sunday paper at all.

Now someone might think it necessary and useful to refute such gross distortions of the truth from Luther's writings. But to that I say No! For the Catholics treat Luther's books as wicked boys treat a fine large mirror, at which they throw stones and filth and take delight in it. Who would want to say: You dear little saints, I will take the trouble to put the mirror together again and polish it nicely bright, that you may look at yourselves in it and see how you are shaped, and scarcely would that be done, when the throwing of stones and filth would begin worse than before?

Your friend

£ £ £ £

Postscript. — Just now I see that a small continuation did follow that article after all. But immediately in the very next article the Catholics have pronounced their own judgment upon their conduct toward the Lutherans; for this article bears the heading: On the Usual Weapons Against the Catholic Church (From the Protestant Mercersburg Review). In it it says among other things: "Their strength consists in the repetition of frightful accusations, without regard to any refutation of the same, in variations upon worn-out commonplaces inherited by tradition from the credulity of past times, further in monstrous exaggeration, distortions, and bold, mocking suspicions, which are flung about on all sides."

Are not the usual weapons hereby described most plainly, which the Catholics have always used against Luther and the Lutherans?

Acknowledgment and Thanks.

For the Ev. Luth. Immanuel Church in Lancaster, O., there has been received:
from J. H. Evers (in Pittsburg) $1,00.
" L. Dönner in Cold Water through Pastor Trautmann 1,00.
" Mr. Adolf Herrmann in St. Louis 1,00.
For this hearty thanks are rendered to the kind donors.

J. P. Kalb, Pastor.