# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 04 12_S110
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

110

And ever deeper tread and tread
The mule's heavy foot in the snow.
And ever slower, step by step,
The train sways onward on the steep height,
Sways on past the abyss
As though it were a cradle.

In majesty the heads of the mountains
Rise up, near and far,
Like giant bodies, terrible.
It is the majesty of the LORD!
The Alp is high, the Alp is steep,
God grant your guides well-being.

Thoughtful and wrapped about,
Clad with white stripes,
Moved like a shadow-image
The silent train goes up the mountain.
O good guides, tell us then,
Who will see the loved ones yet?

What rushes down there into the valley?
Are my wanderers lulled to sleep?
What sits in the snow there, gray and pale,
Softly nestled in soft down?
I think they are sleepers, surely,
They are so still and thoughtful.

But no, it was only a figure of death.
"The cross, the cross!" a guide cries out.
'The cross, the cross!' an echo resounds
With loud jubilation through the air.
They have their path again
And soon find the safe resting-place.

Are we not all wanderers alike
On a dizzyingly high mountain way
To eternity, to God's kingdom,
Where no foot can go without stumbling?
The cross on the way of eternity
Gives hope, peace, security. —

G. Sch.

Why Is the Confession: I Believe in the Bible! Not Sufficient?

We have, as you know, dear reader, (you will allow me to speak so familiarly, — one speaks much better and more openly that way) — we have, then, in our dear Lutheran Church our particular Confessional Writings (symbolical books), that is, books in which our holy faith is set forth firmly and clearly, as it was drawn from God's Word by our fathers and accepted from the beginning. One of these Confessional Writings you and I, and we Lutherans probably all, have had in our hands from youth up, — that is our dear Small Catechism with its five great Chief Parts, with its precious: What is this? — and with the strong words of faith. That is the shortest Confessional Writing, in which the sum of our dear faith is comprehended most finely and childlike. If anyone wishes to know what the Lutheran Church accepts as God's gracious revelation and in what faith a true Lutheran child lives and dies, — let him but open the Small Catechism, — there he has it briefly together.

Besides this, however, we have five more truly glorious books, which all set forth our faith, and which, alas, are not so generally spread abroad as they deserve. Told in confidence, dear reader, — I know many pastors who have never thoroughly studied the Confessional Writings of our Lutheran Church, indeed have not even read them cursorily; is that not a disgrace? The names of these gentlemen I will not mention, — but perhaps you yourself know one or another of the sort.

To our Confessional Writings belongs further the Augsburg Confession, which was read aloud in the year 1530 at Augsburg before the Diet, in which the Evangelicals presented their faith most gloriously. Then the so-called Apology, which the valiant Philip Melanchthon wrote in defense of the Augsburg Confession. Then the Smalcald Articles, which were composed by the man of God, Luther, and in 1537 were laid before an assembly of evangelical princes and theologians at Smalcald and signed; originally it was intended to lay them before a Council, an assembly of bishops and high prelates, which the Pope wished to convene at Mantua. That indeed did not happen, but the Articles were retained because they teach the pure faith most gloriously.

Then comes Luther's Large Catechism, written for the pastors for instruction, — and finally the Formula of Concord (Eintrachtsformel), in which several highly important doctrines of our Lutheran Church, about which strife had arisen, are treated at length; through this most glorious and thoroughly biblical exposition concord was to be established among the Evangelicals, whence the name: Formula of Concord. These 5, together with the Small Catechism, — thus 6 in all, — are the Confessional Writings or the symbolical books of our Lutheran Church, and whoever wishes to know what has been taught and believed among us from of old must look there.

We shall probably speak of this again later, more exactly, for alas, the pure Lutheran doctrine and the confession of our Church are very little known. A faithful pastor has indeed the holy duty to speak of them in church and in the confirmation class, and besides the Small Catechism to discuss with the confirmands at least the Augsburg Confession, — but alas, it does not happen. Indeed, these Confessional Writings are to count for nothing at all in our days. Not even the five Chief Parts are still held in due honor.

Then the very wise men come forward and say: these are books made by men for an old time which is now long past; we are wiser than our forefathers (nowadays, as is well known, the egg always wants to be wiser than the hen), — we no longer need such books, — but we believe in the Bible, that is enough. One hears such a word very often; even quite pious people say it: we believe in the Bible, — and so it is enough. Perhaps, dear reader, you too have sometimes said and thought so, and your pastor has probably also put it forward from the pulpit and in the confirmation class. But let us look more closely: Is it then really enough? — I say flatly: No. That is indeed soon said; but I intend to prove it too, and have three weighty and mighty reasons for it. Now it sounds indeed almost blasphemous that it should not be enough when one confesses faith in the Bible, — but, dear reader, do not rush at once to such a judgment, but first hear what my three weighty reasons are, — then tell me better and otherwise, if you know better and otherwise.

First:

It is not enough to say: I believe in the Bible, because all Christian churches and sects speak so. Here come the Catholics, and base themselves on the Bible, — besides, to be sure, also on the word of the Pope, on oral traditions which Christ is supposed to have communicated to his Apostles and which have been inherited from them on and on, until the man at Rome who lets himself be called the Holy Father wants to have these unwritten words of Christ solely in his possession.

Then the Reformed step forward further and say: we base ourselves solely on the Bible. and yet their faith is different from the Lutheran in many highly important points.

Further there appear the Mennonites, the Moravians, the Baptists, together with the German Catholics and Friends of Light, and all say: we believe in the Bible!

It makes one's head quite dizzy that all of these refer to the one Bible. To be sure, it is often a very strange faith, as especially with the German Catholics and Friends of Light, who take from Holy Scripture whatever just pleases them. They make themselves judges over God's Word and throw away what is too hard or too great for them and keep only the little sayings which just suit their purposes and taste sweet to them, like naughty, snippy children who pick the raisins out of the New Year's pretzel. When it stands there in the Bible: "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me!" or: "He that believeth not shall be damned," — or something about the last judgment and about hell and the devil, — they throw that far away, for that burns, that is to count for nothing. — That we cannot understand, so we do not believe it, — they say, and doctor our dear Word of God so that it is pitiful. Yet withal they always say: we believe in the Bible!

Now examine this once, — what do you know of the faith of a man who only says: I believe in the Bible? — Then you know nothing at all yet, not whether he is a Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Baptist, Moravian, Friend of Light, etc. But when someone asks me: of what faith are you? — he wants to have an answer by which he can also notice what I actually am, and then it is not enough merely to confess: I believe in the Bible, but I must also