# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 11 09_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44

to find the right expression for it. This type (model form) of the sound words she holds high aloft, and can boldly demand that the doctrinal types of all other Churches be directed by hers and reshaped accordingly. So far as she has not forgotten and lost herself, this sound doctrine is the bond of her commonwealth, the pattern of her practice, the presupposition of her science. Our church hymn, our church orders, our ascetic (devotional) literature, our old theology with the fullness of its spiritual life, even in hard and rough scholastic form*) — these are her fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

*) In scholastic form means, in the language of the learned, such as was in use among certain old scholars. Ed.

Is it then stiff obstinacy when the Lutheran Church holds fast to her Confession, when she esteems it her most precious jewel and regards every indifferent attitude toward it as a misjudging and neglect of her calling, as ingratitude toward God's gift? Is it common hatred, excessive hardheartedness, when she refuses the hand of fellowship to those who are unable to say a joyful Yea to her Confession or will give it no practical effect, and hold the differences of the two Protestant Churches to be unessential? Woe to her, if in carnal obstinacy she preferred strife to peace, if she hated those who worship with her at the feet of One Lord! No! if she insists upon her Confession, she does so out of love to those who are not yet of this faith and confession, that they may become so. Out of love to her fellow-redeemed Christian brethren she, holding fast to her Confession, wards off self-deception and lukewarmness, religious mixing and indifferentism. Out of love she demands that those who wish to join her enter in through the door of this Confession, and not climb over this wall drawn about her commonwealth and her holy things. Moreover her love has no boundary at this wall. She recognizes the work of grace also outside herself everywhere where it shows itself, rejoices in it and blesses it. —

(To be continued.)

(Submitted for the Lutheraner.)

Announcement and Appeal of the Evang. Luth. St. John's Congregation in Philadelphia, Pa.

Our dear fellow believers will hear with hearty joy that today, the 27th of September, we have laid here in Philadelphia the cornerstone for a church and school house. We ask our dear brethren for diligent prayer for us and for kindly gifts in support of this work, to which God drove us by the rapid growth of our school, whose number of children far exceeds the number of souls in our congregation. May our dear brethren consider that, while our congregation is very small, the purchase of the lot in this great city alone has already required a considerable sum; that we, as so-called Old Lutherans, may not expect much support from the inhabitants of Philadelphia; that our little congregation, which has now for years contended in great tribulation, is greatly in need of strengthening of faith through its fellows in the kingdom of Christ; finally, that it is also a true grace of God when He uses His Christians for the carrying out of His works. Help us to build a house for the Word of our God in church and school; God will richly bless it upon you and your children.

For prayer and gifts of love, on behalf of the congregation, begs

A. Hoyer, Pastor.

No: 45. Redwood str.
Southwark, Philadelphia.

Postscript. — Although I am, in general, not very much inclined to support the request for a collection for the building of a church, especially in the bush and the smaller towns, since I know from experience that even the poorest congregation, if it is only in true earnest and has learned for the highest, dearest good, namely the dear Gospel, not only to give a very little out of its abundance, but also, in despite of the dear devil of avarice and to the honor of the Lord, to exert itself and to sacrifice in an upright way, is always able to erect a little church such as it needs, yet I cannot refrain this time from laying the request of our dear brother Hoyer and his dear little congregation upon the heart of all the congregations of our Synodical connection. It must indeed rejoice us from the heart and drive us to praise and thanks toward the Lord that precisely in Philadelphia, where the fathers of our Lutheran Church here, Swedes and Germans, with such bitter labor, among many sighs and tears, planted a lovely and splendidly flourishing garden, there has now again gathered a little flock of confession-true Lutherans, who now for many years, with unexampled steadfastness, under the most difficult circumstances, against all the storms of the wicked one, which often threatened to destroy them from without and within, and might well have discouraged the most courageous, have maintained the banner of the orthodox Confession. The dear Hoyer has now also for years labored here with a self-sacrifice that has not its equal, and amid the most distressing experiences and in much want and need has stood by the dear congregation. The building of a little church has now become necessary; for in the damp cellar, in which church and school have been held until now, where the chest of the dear Hoyer, as he writes me, is quite going to ruin, and for which, besides, a heavy rent must be raised, the congregation cannot remain any longer, since the room does not suffice for the number of pupils; but the burden of debt for the new building must crush the small number of members. So let us, then, beloved brethren, honor and support the courage of the dear members of the congregation, as far as the means of each and his love for the kingdom of God permit.

Fr. Wyneken.

(Submitted for the Lutheraner.)

The Conversion of Victorinus.

The divine Word appears to us weak, mean and contemptible so long as it stands far from us; but as soon as it has penetrated into the inner part of the heart, it proves so wonderful a power over all the thoughts and inclinations of man, over his whole way of judging and determining himself, that precisely herein its heavenly origin is laid most clearly to the day. The voice of the Lord breaketh, as David says, the cedars (Ps. 29.); many a one who in his proud strength stands as high as a cedar, and threatens against heaven, must once, in an hour when the higher power seizes him irresistibly, see his whole glory and all his righteousness break together like a reed. Many a weak and timid man, on the other hand, has already, when it came to the point, fetched from the Bible a courage which no one would have credited to him. For there lies in it a divine power, transforming heart and being, which everyone can feel who only uses it faithfully and devoutly. And where this has become effective, there even the strongest selfish impulses can be overcome, and a holy self-sacrificing love gives strength to the will for the hardest thing. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Cor. 5, 17.). — A speaking and encouraging example of this is Victorinus, known as a Christian writer and poet, of whose conversion to Christianity some account shall be given.

This distinguished man lived in the 2nd half of the 4th century after Christ. He taught rhetoric at Rome with extraordinary applause, had carefully looked about him in all the systems of philosophy and himself composed various philosophical writings, possessed besides a rare general culture, and had thereby become so famous among his contemporaries that during his lifetime a statue was set up to him at Rome. Withal he was devoted to heathenism, and a zealous defender of the old doctrine of the gods against the new preaching of the one God and His Son, the Redeemer of the world, Jesus Christ. Yet Victorinus did not like, as many of his kind, the empty dismissing out of general principles, without a coherent and thorough knowledge of Christianity. But, although he had already a long life in the