# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 05 10_S126
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

126

church council in Schwelm unpleasant, and to him who has heard or read the sermon it cannot seem just so incredible. The said church council is supposed to have discovered in that luminous enlightenment an incitement to hatred, to insult and mockery of the Roman Catholic Church, and to have applied to the local Royal Public Prosecutor's office for an investigation against Pastor Heinrich and, what no doubt mattered most to them, for the seizure and destruction of the printed copies. In consequence of this the District Court had resolved upon the indictment and had summoned the author together with the printer of the sermon before its bar on the ground of Article 135 of the Penal Code. This article reads: "Whoever publicly, in words, writings, or other representations, blasphemes God, or mocks one of the Christian churches or another religious society existing in the state with corporate rights, or the objects of its veneration, its doctrines, institutions, or customs, or represents them in a manner which exposes them to hatred or contempt, shall be punished with imprisonment up to three years."

Pastor Heinrich appeared in person before the court, without any other legal counsel save his dear Word of God. The indictment contained 14 incriminated passages of that Reformation sermon, all of which were supposed to be contrary to that paragraph of the Penal Code, thus a 14-fold insult and mockery and incitement of hatred against the Roman Catholic Church. With great calm the accused stepped before his judges and, in a two-hour defense, thoroughly clear, logically sharp and telling, developed his full right as an evangelical preacher to such a Reformation sermon, in its entirety as well as in its individual expressions. He pointed out how far from him the intention had been, and how the sermon was not designed to arouse hatred, etc., against the Roman Catholic Church, but rather compassion, as indeed, according to the express words of the introduction, it was meant to work gratitude for the blessing of the Reformation and love for the evangelical confession. He called attention to the mighty difference between the language of the Bible, and therefore of evangelical preaching, and the language of ordinary life. He showed point by point how his sermon must be judged not from a subjective but from an objective standpoint, how not a single one of the views and doctrines he had set forth was peculiar to himself, but was the way of understanding of the Holy Scripture and of the holy Church which had called him to be a preacher. He showed that not only these doctrines but also the sharp, judging expressions were founded on God's Word as well as on the symbolical books, that this legal ground of the evangelical Church may not be taken from or curtailed for any preacher of it, and that he had been obligated by his superior authority precisely upon this legal ground. In conclusion he remarked that it could by no means be objected to him that the standpoint is now a different one from that of 300 years ago, when the symbolical books were composed; the standpoint, he said, was rather still the same, on the Roman Catholic side an unceasing hostility, a war of annihilation waged with all possible means, which indeed in the present time has been taken up with new vehemence and in which Jesuitism has brought up its heavy artillery against the evangelical Church — therefore, on the evangelical side, a continual protesting against everything that is not founded in the living Word of God. — With tense attention and breathless silence those present followed the whole address, and visibly powerful was the impression on their hearts. The Royal Public Prosecutor's office admitted in its reply, to be sure, that the intention to arouse hatred, etc., could not be proved against the accused, found this also confirmed by the publication of the sermon, and for that reason a mitigating circumstance in this publication; yet it maintained that such an offense against § 135 was in reality to be found in the sermon, and moved for the punishment of the accused.

After the court had postponed the publication of the judgment for some hours, it was published at 5 o'clock in the evening to the effect that Pastor Heinrich, being guilty of having offended against § 135 of the Penal Code, was sentenced to imprisonment of fourteen days and the printer to imprisonment of eight days, and the destruction of the printed copies of his sermon was declared lawful. In its grounds the judgment pronounced chiefly that the expressions used in the sermon were indeed apt to call forth "hatred, etc.," that the objective standpoint of the Church and of the church's doctrine could not be maintained in judging with regard to the simple law, but that over against the law the accused as a person had transgressed, that his appeal to the symbolical books also could not justify him, since at the time of their origin the parity of both churches now existing before the law had not yet been established. That is the simple course of this remarkable trial, through which the sad truth has come to light that an evangelical preacher, if he holds strictly to the ground of faith of his Church, if he teaches and testifies out of the contents of his symbolical books, which are holy to him and to which he is solemnly pledged, may by this teaching and testifying become guilty of an offense against the Penal Code of the 14th of April 1851 and fall under the civil law.

According to the judgment of the court no clergyman is any longer in a position to fulfill his ordination vow without being exposed to imprisonment. And as it goes in Prussia, so will it go in other states of Germany, if one does not take energetic action.

I feel myself all the more obliged to make this communication because the circulation of larger and smaller writings for the defense of the reformatory truths against the Roman Church, after such occurrences, becomes an impossibility in Prussia without exposing oneself to a heavy penalty.

With respect
and Christian devotion,
Dr. Marriot.

Basel, the 16th of March 1853.

(Apologete.)

(Communicated.)

Lament and Comfort.

Lament.

My days flee away,
Like the clouds drifting by,
Chased by the storms of heaven,
Like an arrow whizzing along,
Like a stream rushing on,
Like a dream that vanishes when day dawns.

So too I hasten
To my death without rest,
And soon the dark grave covers me.
Ah, men pass away,
Like the flowers blown off:
Scarce have they bloomed, when they fall away.

Nothing but care and toil
Is life from morn
Till the sun sinks at evening;
Yet the bitterest distress
Is grisly death,
Who shows himself as king of terrors.

And so I drive about
On the billowing sea
Of this life in a tossing skiff.
All round by storms moved
And by waves stirred,
Toilsome and comfortless is the course.

For without only strife
And within only grief;
For the world's pleasure passes like a storm.
And within complains
The conscience, it gnaws,
The undying worm of sin, at me.

I am hateful to myself,
A burden to myself;
Ah, I feel only everlasting horror.
For by remorse and pain
My heart is consumed,
And no little star of comfort is to be seen.

Where does peace but sit enthroned?
Does it dwell on earth?
Ah, how gladly I would chase after it!
Through lands and seas,
Over mountains and heights
I would hasten by night and by day.

* *
*

Comfort.

Yet the Word is nigh thee,
The LORD JESUS is here,
Who has brought peace from heaven.
Therefore seek Him not afar,
Since in the Word of the LORD
The sun of love smiles on thee.

What thou hast painfully lacked,
What thou hast longingly desired,