# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 04 12_S109
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

109

The American Messenger.

We have already mentioned several times this paper, published by the American Tract Society and edited by a United preacher who has fallen away to the Anabaptists. We cannot refrain from doing so again. This paper pretends to be an organ free of all sectarianism and, by spreading solely the generally Christian doctrines of all denominations, at least the Protestant ones. Even if the paper really pursued this tendency, a Lutheran preacher could, to be sure, not recommend it to those entrusted to him. With such a unionistic tendency the paper must of necessity stifle in its readers all conscientiousness concerning the purity and unadulteratedness of the Word of God, and become an instrument for the ever further building up of the united Babel. To this is now added that the paper, with its indifference toward error, on the other hand makes known the bitterest enmity against the truth in almost every number. Thus in the number for this current month of April there is found a quite venomously written correspondence, purporting to be from Bavaria, in which not only is there bitter complaint over the rise to dominance of the strictly churchly Lutherans in Bavaria and the united hodgepodge in Rhenish Bavaria highly praised, but it is also mendaciously asserted that the so-called churchliness "comes forward under the semblance of faith, while it only spreads death about itself, seeking not to convert the children of the world, but to infect the believers with its fanaticism." We hold it our duty to testify that this is a downright devilish Union lie. We know from our own observation that precisely among the so-called strictest Old Lutherans a life so fresh and zealous in Christ, such an earnestness of godliness, such an ardor of love in good works is found, as is sought in vain among the indifferent United with their sickly Christianity of feeling and no feeling. May all preachers, therefore, who have thus far looked on with indifference at the smuggling of the "Botschafter" into their congregations, blush at this and learn to fear the heavy responsibility which they will one day have to bear also for this, whether they have watched over the soul's food which the souls entrusted to them have enjoyed.

The Martyrs of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

We cannot omit, on our part also, to call attention to the new work announced under the above title in previous numbers by Pastor Fick, Sr. We know the plan according to which the author is working, and the by no means insignificant good sources which stand at his disposal, exactly, and can therefore assure the readers with good reason that here, for a small sum, an exceedingly precious gift is offered them. In particular, may the dear brethren in the office be reminded that the slight trouble, if any, of collecting subscribers will certainly find a thousandfold reward in the blessing which the spread of a Lutheran book of martyrs in and outside their congregations among young and old would undoubtedly bring about, and that the more quickly the subscribers are sent in, the sooner the work can appear and its blessing flow. —

The Editorial Staff of the "Lutheraner."

☞ F. W. Barthel offers to receive subscriptions.

The German Evang. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States

holds its sessions this year in Cleveland, Ohio,

from the Wednesday after the first Sunday post trin., the 1st of June, until the 11th ej. m. inclusive.

There will be persons ready at the places of arrival, as well as at the warehouse of Messrs. Lobb & Bishop situated on the harbor, to assign their lodgings to the arriving synodical members.

Ludwig W. Habel,
present Secretary of the Synod.

"Love the truth and peace." Zech. 8, 19.
"Charity rejoiceth in the truth." 1 Cor. 13, 6.

So writes Luther:

"In the Church there is no forgiveness of sins, so far as the Word is concerned; but there everything is straight as a line and the highest purity. For the Word is so pure and blameless that in the Law and the divine promises not even in the smallest letter can there be a defect. Therefore one should not yield to the factious spirits or heretics in the least point or tittle of Holy Scripture, however loudly they cry and falsely accuse us that it is against love that we insist so strictly on the words of Holy Scripture. For this is the beginning of love, that this scepter (the doctrine) remain straight, and if we cannot otherwise preserve it, we ought rather to break all the bonds of love, even if it were something greater, so that the Word alone may remain pure. When the Word is pure and this scepter remains straight, then I will gladly bear in love the weakness and infirmities of my neighbor." (On Ps. 45, 7.)

Note, dear reader, from this fine, powerful testimony of our old Luther, upon what a dangerous wrong path the united, so-called Evangelical communion is, which acts according to the principle: first comes love, and then the truth. You see from this that whoever is not above all concerned that the Word of God be kept pure and clear, and in doctrine makes love the empress, has made no beginning at all in love; he has only a sham love; at bottom, what he so highly praises as love, and with which he so highly vaunts himself against the faithful witnesses for the truth, is nothing but love of himself, of his belly, and murderous hatred toward his neighbor. For who can act more selfishly than he who trifles away the truth in order to be able to lead a comfortable life in quiet and peace; and who can show himself more hostile toward the lost world sitting in darkness than he who has the office "to hold fast the faithful word, and to teach, that he may be able by sound doctrine to convince the gainsayers" (Tit. 1, 9.), and yet enters into a league to shut an eye at this and that falsification of the saving truth? —

Why the Pope Binds the Priests to Himself by Oath.

Pope Julius II. has given this to be understood not indistinctly. He writes, namely, to the chapter at Mainz the following: "The oath by which the Pope binds the clergy to himself is of such force that, by reason of it, the clergy are not permitted to be opposed to the Pope, even if their cause is just and concerns the defense of the truth." — This utterance of His Unholiness gives sufficient explanation why the Protestants could not once send delegates to the Council of Trent, although they were invited to it, namely because the papal bishops who opened the Council had already bound themselves to the Pope by an oath.

(Communicated.)

The Cross.

Dear wanderers, say, whither away?
The rain wets the paths full sore.
The flowers of summer are gone,
Autumn lies heavy on the land.
The Alp is high, the Alp is steep,
God grant your guides well-being!

Well yes, the morning dew of summer
No longer hangs in our hair.
Autumn, so eerily cool and raw,
Likes to threaten danger in the mountains.
Yet our loved ones, alas, count
Already long the stroke of every hour!

Longing does not shun the Alps,
They set out from Fenestrelles.
Hark, what the deep below says,
Hark above, alas, the roar of the storm.
They climb the steep path up,
Abysses yawn opened wide.

The rain's moist spring runs dry,
The hail's silver rolls like dust.
And in the air the snow sways,
A giant down, like summer foliage.
O were we but across already,
Right eerie is the storm's sound!