# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 08 16_S182
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

182

feel the harshness of her mother, who was as unmotherly as she was unbelieving. One day the latter sent her to the nearest village to fetch a few small things. On the way a venerable Christian preacher met her. Seeing tears in the girl's eyes, he asked her: "Why do you weep, my child? — The girl: I weep over myself, that I love my LORD Jesus, whom I would so gladly love more than everything in the world, still far too little, and then I weep over my dear mother, that she does not love the LORD Jesus at all. — "You seemed also to be praying; what were you praying?" — I prayed for myself, and also for my dear mother, that the LORD Jesus would reveal Himself to her, and look kindly upon her, so that she too might come to love Him. — The preacher left her with the words: Go on praying so; your prayer shall be heard!

The child, her errand done, came back to her mother. The mother received her lovingly, kissed her, and said: "Did you think of me on the way, my child?" Yes, mother — "Did you pray to God for me?" Yes, mother, — "And what?" — That the LORD Jesus would be right kind and gracious to you, and that we might both come to Him in heaven some day. — "I felt it, my daughter, that you had prayed for me. Pray every day for me and for your brother and sister! From now on I shall do so too, and shall also urge your brother and sister to do the same." — The child skipped for joy at the unexpected and unaccustomed reception and utterance of her mother. Indeed, the LORD had opened this Lydia's heart; a ray of His merciful love had pierced into her soul and had kindled in her cold heart; and she now began also to hear and read the Word of God diligently.

1 Tim. 2, 1.

Consequences of Using the Latin Language in the Church of Rome in the Liturgical Acts.

Johann Warnefried, at the beginning of the last century preacher at Ulm, relates in his discussion of the question, Whether between the Augsburg Confession and the Roman religion there is no particular difference? — "that he knew and spoke with a man whom a Roman priest, out of wantonness, had baptized in Latin in the name of the devil. Afterward the priest himself, driven by the anguish of his conscience, confessed this, whereupon that man had to let himself be baptized once more, when he was already over thirty years old. — How many may there be in the Roman Church who have been baptized in Latin by wanton priests thus in the name of the devil, or at least incorrectly!

Well known is what Luther, among others, experienced in this respect. He himself tells the matter thus: "I was at Rome not long, and held many masses there, and also saw many masses held, so that I shudder when I think of it. There I heard, among other good coarse louts at table, Curtisans (papal courtiers) laugh and boast how some held mass and over the bread and wine spoke these words: Panis es et panis manebis, vinum es et vinum manebis (that is, thou art bread and wilt remain bread, thou art wine and wilt remain wine) and so elevated it. Now, I was a young and very earnest, pious monk, to whom such words gave pain; what was I to think? What else could occur to me but such thoughts as these: If they speak thus openly at table here in Rome, what if they all together, both Pope and Cardinals together with the courtiers, held mass in that way? How finely I should be deceived, I who have heard so many masses from them!" — How many Roman priests who are mockers in their hearts may still, like those in Luther's time, consecrate bread and wine in Latin thus, not only for the ape-play of the mass, but also for the celebration of the holy Supper, and thousands go forward in the delusion of receiving Christ's body, while an unconsecrated host, a little flour and water, is handed them to eat and to adore!

Finally J. Gast relates in his Merkwürdigkeiten that a Roman priest, because a nobleman was ignorant of the Latin language and manifestly impenitent, did indeed absolve him, in order to get the gold piece offered him for it, but with the following words: "Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve thee, if He will, and forgive thee thy sins, which I do not believe, and lead thee to eternal life, which is impossible." — How many a popish father confessor may, out of just as great conscientiousness and at the same time in just as great need of money, speak similar comforting Latin absolutions to his wicked penitents!

The Sins Which the Present Church of Rome Is Sorry For.

The Roman Church has shed so much blood of innocent Christians and holy martyrs that she would well have cause to bewail this her blood-guiltiness crying to heaven with a sea of bloody tears. But how should she do that? Would she then not be that woman who was to be drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus! Revelation of St. John 17, 6. What repentance the present Papists, on the other hand, do for those sins of their fathers is shown, among others, by the editor of the "Univers," a highly esteemed French Catholic periodical, which at present stands in the special favor of the present Pope. For thus writes the said editor, without doubt in the name and mind of all strict Roman Catholics:

"I am sorry that John Huss was not burned sooner than he was."

"I am likewise sorry that Luther was not punished in the same manner."

"And I am sorry that at this time there was found no king wise enough, pious enough, and politic enough to undertake a crusade against Protestantism."

Let no one wonder, therefore, if the bloody atrocities which the Roman Church has committed in the past are still held up to the Catholics and declared by them to be a factual testimony that the Papacy is the kingdom of Antichrist. For strict Catholics, far from being ashamed now of those atrocities and renouncing them, only regret that still more blood of the witnesses of the truth was not shed and the whole Protestant world not drowned in its own blood.

The Manner in Which the Roman Catholic Missionaries Do Missionary Work Among the Heathen.

Dr. Pressel writes in his work: Zustände des Protestantismus in Frankreich:

It may perhaps not be uninteresting to many of our readers to hear in what manner the Propaganda of French missionaries carries on its work among the heathen. It has thrown down the gauntlet to Protestant missionary activity by boasting of the 3 million francs which the whole of Catholic Christendom contributes annually to the work of missions, without wishing to add that the three times smaller Protestant Church contributes annually to the same work no less than 26 millions and 783,474 francs. But when the French Catholic missionary society speaks of its brilliant successes, behind which Protestant activity falls far short! consider this: it is true, the Catholic missionaries, mostly the bishops who direct them, convert by the thousand wherever they go, but why? — Because with them there is need neither of instruction, nor of examination, nor of repentance and conversion. The Catholic "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith" report this themselves. We translate literally some of these reports.

How Father Bataillon Baptizes on the Island of Wallis.

"In order to meet no resistance, he says, when I baptize children even before the eyes of their mothers, I follow the following method. I always have in my pocket a sweet-smelling little bottle, and beside it another with ordinary water: first I pour a few drops from the first upon the child's head, under the pretext of strengthening it, and while the mother spreads these drops upon her child's head, I exchange the bottle