# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 06 07_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

143

and namely:
from Mr. Kautz the elder $1.00
" Messrs. D. Werling, Wend. Kautz, G. Geuder, each $0.50 1.50
" Messrs. C. Heilmann, H. Wolf, H. Fruth the elder, J. Priode the elder, J. Werling, M. Willer, each $0.25., and J. Fischer $0.20 1.70
From Mr. Pastor Oberwahrenbrock 1.00
" members of the congregation of Mr. Pastor Sauer in Jackson Co., Ia., namely:
from Messrs. H. Bühner, G. Mönnig, G. H. Schneider, G. Rölker, each $1.00 4.00
" the congregations of Mr. Pastor Kolb in Adams and Allen Co., Ia. 10.00
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Trautmann in Adrian, Mich. 5.00
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Brauer in Addison, Ill. 37.00
" the school children in Addison 1.50
" the St. John's congregation of Mr. Pastor Stecher in Whitley Co., Ia. 4.00
" his St. Peter's congregation in Huntington 5.00
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Löber in Frohna, Perry Co., Mo. 4.00
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Clöter in Saginaw, Mich. 7.32
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Stürken in Logansport, Ia. 11.00
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Mattfeld at Pekin, Ill. 4.50
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Häckel in Jefferson Co., Mo. 5.15
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Baumgarten in Elkhorn Prairie, Ill. 19.20
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Schieferdecker in Altenburg, Perry Co., Mo. 6.30
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Gruber in Paitzdorf, Mo. 2.25
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Schliepsick in Madison Co., Ill. 7.95
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Detzer in Defiance, O. 4.00
" the congregation of Mr. Pastor Fick in Bremen near St. Louis, namely:
from Messrs. Sträter and Jessen 4.00
" Messrs. G. and C. Bewie 2.00
" Mr. Kohte and an unnamed person, each $1.00 2.00
" Messrs. Lammers, Heinz, Paust, Wiecke, Kühn, Witzthum, Kappmeier, Göeling, Neller and Fr. Buschmann, each $0.50 5.00
" Messrs. Niehaus, Schulmacher, Wittemeier, Tobessing, Schlef, each $0.25 1.25
J. F. Bünger, Pastor.
(Continuation to follow.)

Receipt and Thanks.

We have received for our church buildings in Harford and Long Green:
From the Rev. Synod of Missouri etc. $8.87½
From Washington City 9.50
From Baltimore, from members of the congregation there 72.52
From Mr. Dr. Haynel, member of the congregation there 75.00
for which we heartily thank all the givers. — Besides these, many kinds of gifts for our support have come to us from our dear sister congregation in Baltimore, for which also, with wishes of God's blessing, we heartily thank them.

Further, we would not omit to give thanks for the support which has come to us from Baltimore for the maintenance of the holy ministry of preaching among us for several years. May God, the LORD, bless the dear givers for the many not inconsiderable gifts of love, which are written down not merely on earth, — and not on earth.

At the same time in the name of his three congregations
their Pastor
M. W. Sommer.

Because of the absence of the editor, the continuation of the "tabular survey" does not appear in this number.

Johann Crüger,
the Cantor.

That was once a wonderful time of grace, when two hundred years ago all Germany for thirty years was filled with murder and fire. A time of grace? you ask. Yes, certainly, for the more dreadful things went on outside, the more lovely it was in the hearts, houses and churches of Christian people. Fully half of the beautiful old hymns of our fathers arose in those hard days and were first sung; a considerable part of the most beautiful melodies were born then. The musicians esteemed themselves highly honored when it was permitted them to adorn with melodies the hymns of the singers, such as Johann Heermans, Rist, Paul Gerhard; Rist, who composed "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort," had at his side the Hamburg town musician Schop, who set melodies such as "Werde munter mein Gemüthe;" Gerhard's "Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld" and many other beautiful hymns of the same poet Ebeling has adorned with beautiful tunes; what do you say to the melodies: "Schmücke dich o liebe Seele," and "Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen"? — is it not true, they are very beautiful; well, and these Johann Crüger sang.

Johann Crüger was born on the 9th of April 1598 at Großbrense near Guben in Prussia. After he had studied at Breslau, Olmütz and Regensburg, and had already been for a time a private tutor to the children of a captain von Blumenthal in Berlin, he studied theology besides at Wittenberg. There he made himself known by some musical works and was therefore called in 1622 to the cantor's post at the St. Nicholas Church in Berlin, which office he entered upon on the 1st Sunday after Trinity. His rich gift of inventing lovely melodies for church hymns was now trained by God's grace under manifold heavy cross. His first wife, together with 5 children, died soon after the birth of the fifth child. In his second marriage God blessed him indeed with 14 children, but of these also he had to follow many early to the grave. Besides, he had to endure the tribulations of the whole Thirty Years' War, which lasted from 1618 – 1648. But the Lord was his strong fortress, his refuge the Word of God. With heartiest joy of heart he collected the older church hymns, and besides these Paul Gerhard's, who for a time was deacon at the same church, and above all Johann Heermann's hymns, in hymnbooks, and sang to them tunes such as: "Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen", "Von Gott will ich nicht lassen", "Auf auf, mein Herz mit Freuden," "Jesu, meine Freude," "Jesus, meine Zuversicht." What a victorious faith, what childlike humility, what heartfelt love to the Saviour must have lived in the heart of him who invented the melody "Jesus, meine Zuversicht"; he surely had a true Easter joy who first sang: "Auf, auf, mein Herz, mit Freuden" and what think you, does not he taste aright the sweetness of the Holy Supper who set to it the melody "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele"? What became hymn and song of praise with the poets of the time, the faith and comfort of faith out of God's Word, that became with Crüger sound and music, certainly wonderfully resounding in the midst of the wildest din of war that ever was heard in Germany. Among his hymnbooks, of which he published several, the one of the year 1658, called "Uebung der Gottseligkeit," was held the best in German lands and has gone through 43 editions. For forty years he administered his office with blessed fidelity and promoted, far and near, the edification of the Christian congregation. On the 23rd of February 1662 God took him home, where he will now sing hymns forever in the triumphant Church. In the St. Nicholas Church in Berlin his portrait is to be seen, over which is written:

Ye who into this House of God
Often with your devotion go,
And in passing in and out
See this my lifeless portrait:
Think, how to God's praise and glory
I sang many a beautiful hymn;
More beautiful in Paradise
They ring now again.
Would to God, all my beloved,
Who are still in the vale of tears,
Might soon, like me, practice
Singing along in Heaven's hall.

Punishment for Praise of Luther.

The Spanish Dominican Gundisalvi relates in his highly readable history of the Spanish Inquisition, among other things, the following. In the album of two students an inquisitor found some verses which on the one side reviled Luther in the most horrible fashion, on the other side, in quite the same words, contained a great praise of Luther. What happened? The students were forthwith taken into prison. The one had now, as punishment for his unheard-of crime, to lie imprisoned a whole year, thereupon, in a public procession without coat and head-covering, a wax candle in his hand, to walk through the streets of the city of Seville and then to leave the province of this name, where he had committed the dreadful crime, after he had taken an oath not to return thither within three years. The other student, who had copied those verses only because they were so artfully composed, got off more mercifully. The holy judges of heresy contented themselves, namely, with this, that he, since he possessed some property, paid the costs of the trial and of the year's imprisonment of his colleague, and besides, as a merciful penalty, a hundred ducats into the holy court treasury.