# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 11 09_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

46

a man later turns out a good-for-nothing. But the proverb may also be taken in a better sense. For it often shows itself quite early in youth whether anyone will later become a capable man. So it could well be noticed early in little Luther that he would one day become a capable theologian, since already as a boy he not only studied so diligently and made progress, but also had the little saying ever in his mouth: “Diligent prayer is more than half of study.” Another example of this, of which I will here relate, is the old theologian Johannes Heinrich Feustking.

He was the son of a godly Lutheran preacher, who lived in the 17th century, at Stellau in Holstein. Already in the cradle his dear parents had destined him to be a servant of God in His holy Church. And behold! it soon appeared that it was indeed God’s gracious will that little Heinrich should one day be His preacher. For he read in the Bible so gladly and eagerly that, when he had reached the tenth year of his age, he had already read the whole Holy Scripture through five times. His dear father, it is true, died soon, so that it seemed he would after all have to learn a trade. But his pious mother Dorothea, a native of the family von Molsdorf, held that the true Father still lived, and that He would surely help that her dear little son, who had once been dedicated to the LORD, might yet become His servant. And God did not let her hope be put to shame. With the help of pious Christians she brought it about, after the father’s death, that the promising orphan boy came to the Latin school at Itzehoe and afterwards to the Gymnasium at Krempe. But the chief thing which the pious widowed mother did in this was the prayers which she unceasingly sent up to God for the little scholar, and the hearty motherly admonitions which she continually addressed to him. Hence he himself, when he had afterwards become a man, wrote of his mother: “that she had labored with more care and pains at his spiritual birth than she had borne him after the flesh.” Her motherly care and faithfulness, her silent tears and prayers, were also not lost. Our Johannes Heinrich Feustking soon made such great progress at school that already as a boy of sixteen — it was in the year 1688 — he could enter the University of Rostock, and a year later that of Wittenberg, where he completed his theological studies happily and with blessing. He had now become so good a preacher, and his fame had spread so far, that he was called to several large congregations. His life was indeed, according to God’s unsearchable counsel, a short one; he died already in the forty-second year of his age; but not until he had, through his glorious sermons and beautiful writings, established a great blessing in the Church.

The reason, however, why I said that the proverb was fulfilled in him: “What is to become a hook bends early,” is really as follows. When our Heinrich was only nine years old, his father once became so unwell that he saw he would probably not be able to preach on the next Sunday — it was the Sunday Misericordias Domini. In jest the father therefore said to the little one: since he himself could not preach next Sunday, he would probably have to take over the sermon and fill his place. The boy hears this in silence, and in the belief that his father had meant the matter in earnest, goes into his study and there secretly learns by heart a sermon out of the postil of old Dilherr, on the good Shepherd. Sunday comes. The schoolmaster, who had been charged to read a sermon, goes into the church to begin the service; but finds little Pastor-Heinrich already in the sacristy, about to do the same. The boy declares to the schoolmaster with a serious mien that the Father had so commanded. The teacher hears this with astonishment, strikes up the hymn: “Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist etc.,” and hastens, during the singing, to the parsonage, to report this pretense to the boy’s parents. But scarcely is the schoolmaster gone, when the boy steps forth to the altar, and as the congregation ceases to sing after the end of the first verse, he also immediately begins to recite his memorized sermon. Meanwhile, however, the schoolmaster had returned in company with the father. With amazement they hear, already at the door, that the little one is already in the midst of preaching, and as the father soon perceives that the sermon is from Dilherr’s postil, and that the boy delivers it word for word without a stumble, he does not venture to disturb the devout assembly, but waits at the door until the little preacher has happily brought everything to an end.

The Holiness of the Popes.

Pope John XIII. (according to others’ reckoning the XII.) stands in no good repute even among the Papists. Among others the Minorite Joh. de Pineda, to indicate which John he means, usually calls him “John the Sinner,” and in other places a “hellish monster.” The Bishop of Cremona, Luitprand, gives the following description of him: “In a synod at Rome, at which Emperor Otto IV. himself was present, this Pope was accused: that he did not attend the canonical divine service; that he did not communicate when he said Mass; that he had ordained deacons in a horse stable; that he had committed incest with two sisters; had called the devil to his help in a game of dice; had made bishops for money; had robbed many women of their honor; had had an unlawful intimacy with his father’s concubine, Stephana, likewise with the widows Reynera and Anna and with his own granddaughter; that he had made his own confessor blind, gone out publicly armed, smashed windows and doors, and drunk to the health of the devil. The end of so shameful a Pope was as follows: he died in the year 964, in the 10th year of his reign. For he was stabbed by one who had caught him in adultery with his wife.

Of Pope Pius III. Gundisalvus Illescas, a Spanish priest and otherwise zealous Papist and concealer of the papal misdeeds, writes: “He was a terrible blasphemer, and although his speeches seemed shameless, his deeds would yet have disputed the precedence with them. One heard him use such blasphemous speeches that even the worst rascal and trooper could not have done worse.” Under this Pope Johannes de la Casa, Archbishop of Benevento, Dean of the Apostolic Chamber and papal Nuncio at Venice, wrote a book on sodomy, in which he praised this most filthy of all abominations as a divine work, and dedicated the book to the Pope, under whose privilege the same was also printed at Venice by Trojanus Novain in the year 1552. (To this, of course, the Antichrist gave liberty, while he forbade the printing of Bibles and had those in whose possession he found Bibles burned. The “Wahrheitsfreund,” who has lately defended in a godless manner the antichristian, accursed and devilish papal prohibition of Bible-reading, ought in fairness, to set the crown upon his work, to have told also that such genuinely papal books as de la Casa’s were by no means forbidden to be read by His Holiness, Father Pope.)

Praise the Lord, O My Soul.

Ah, why art thou yet so slothful,
O soul, to praise thy God?
Of whose most faithful loving care
Thou seest daily so many proofs,
And who with good at every turn
Hath overflowed me from above.
Is it right, then, without shame,
To withhold from the LORD the thanks that are due?

And yet he hath sworn forever:
“O child of man, I am thy Father!”
When in baptism thou wast newborn,
And ever was he thy most faithful Counsellor.
Yea, what for thee, a sinner, who was lost,
Love alone can do, that did He.
How, wilt thou so grieve thy God,
And not consider His love?

Say, what else is thy life
But an immeasurable chain
Of benefits which God hath given thee,
And which in greatness strive
To outshine one another?